THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


/^r-^ 


rhe   RAID   on   PROSPERITY 


The  RAID  on 
PROSPERITY 


By 


JAMES    ROSCOE    DAY,  LL.D.,   D.C.L. 

CHANCELLOR    OF   SYRACUSE    UNIVERSITY 


D.     APPLETON     AND     COMPANY 

NEW     YORK 

1908 


Copyright,  1907,  bv 
D.   APPLETON   AND  COMPANY 


Publiahed  November,  1907 


106 

7>   ^,  ^    *  L 


TO 
MY    FATHER 

THOMAS      DAY 

WHO    TAUGHT    ME 

TO    REVERE   THE    CONSTITUTION 

AND 

TO    REGARD    THE    RIGHTS    OF    MEN 

I    DEDICATE   THIS    BOOK    , 


2049610 


PREFACE 


When  men  cannot  answer  facts  or  arguments,  they  usu- 
ally resort  to  impugning  motives,  and  they  descend  to  abuse 
more  or  less  coarse,  according  to  the  fiber  of  their  natures. 
To  such  persons  it  is  useless  for  one  to  give  a  reason  for  acts 
or  utterances  which  they  assail.  The  student  with  judicial 
mind  finds  his  way  to  explanations  of  motives  by  processes 
that  require  no  emendation.  For  him  a  statement  is  not 
necessary.  To  the  hurried,  sincere  man  a  prefatory  word 
may  be  proper. 

Since  I  entered  upon  this  discussion,  a  year  and  a  half 
ago,  when  my  opinions  met  violent  opposition,  a  marked 
change  seems  to  have  come  over  a  large  portion  of  the 
public. 

The  subjects  discussed  in  these  pages  I  pronounced 
myself  upon  for  the  most  part  twenty  years  ago.  My  con- 
victions have  not  come  to  me  out  of  the  exigencies  of  a  col- 
lege presidency  or  by  the  contaminating  Influence  of  million- 
aires! I  am  on  record,  with  such  record  as  a  comparatively 
young  man  could  make,  far  back  beyond  the  present  agita- 
tion. From  the  time  when  as  a  lad  of  fourteen  I  passed 
around  the  continent  from  Maine  to  Oregon  to  the  times 

vii 


PREFACE 

when  I  penetrated  to  its  centers  and  crossed  It  along  its 
diameter,  I  have  had  an  increasing  appreciation  of  our  coun- 
try's magnitude  and  the  immensity  of  our  times,  and  I  have 
believed  that  if  as  a  people  we  were  as  large  as  our  oppor- 
tunity, the  civilized  world  would  revolve  around  us  as  its 
axis  because  we  would  comprise  the  blood  and  force  of  all 
great  peoples,  and  our  mighty  endeavors,  restricted  only  by 
the  extent  and  enormous  resources  of  our  vast  territory, 
would  be  the  necessity  and  service  of  all  lands. 

The  occasion  for  my  speaking  is  due  to  certain  incidents 
in  the  administration  of  the  government  which  I  believe  un- 
warranted by  our  Constitution,  and  in  their  tendency  de- 
structive to  our  liberties  and  the  progress  of  our  commerce. 
Carried  to  their  conclusions — and  these  are  not  far  away — 
they  must  result  in  an  oligarchy.  A  lawmaking,  court- 
controlling  executive  department,  a  government  by  commis- 
sions, a  personal  construction  of  the  Constitution  is  not  a 
republic. 

The  trial  of  business  corporations  in  courts  of  the  ad- 
ministration, by  a  prosecuting  administration,  the  arraign- 
ment of  citizens  and  their  business  by  name  in  a  condemna- 
tory way,  the  characterizing  of  private  citizens  offensively, 
and  the  commenting  adversely  upon  men  under  indictment 
waiting  trial,  unseemly  quarrels  with  the  representatives  of 
our  highest  official  positions  before  an  astonished  civilized 
world,  and  gratuitous  attacks  upon  citizens  for  their  personal 
opinions  and  teachings,  have  seemed  to  me  so  opposed  to  all 
our  dignified  traditions  and  such  a  menace  to  our  boasted 
freedom  as  to  justify  an  examination  of  some  first  principles. 

viii 


PREFACE 

I  speak  by  no  man's  favor  nor  am  I  restrained  by  any 
man's  frown.  My  credentials  are  sufficient.  I  am  an  Amer- 
ican citizen. 

If  a  corrective  to  existing  evils  should  be  applied  in  any 
case,  it  should  be  done  by  calm,  statesmanlike  perception  of 
the  large  and  far-extended  interests  of  the  country;  not  as 
"  punitive  only,  but  as  protective  "  also,  and  not  as  "  offen- 
sive alone,  but  defensive  "  of  our  country's  immense  com- 
merce, both  foreign  and  domestic,  rather  than  by  emotional 
and  sensational  fiction  writers  of  socialistic  vagaries,  whose 
romancing  is  accepted  against  the  character  of  firms  of  the 
highest  reputation  in  their  commercial  relations,  which  are 
the  most  sensitive  courts  of  probity  and  honor,  or  by  small 
men  whose  official  relations  to  such  mighty  questions  is  the 
accident  of  political  preferment,  men  usually  without  pre- 
vious training  or  practical  knowledge. 

The  future  of  our  country  depends  upon  the  men  of 
faith,  men  who  believe  in  the  sure  movement  of  the  gulf 
stream  of  human  events  along  definite  lines  of  progress  with 
no  very  serious  or  fatal  deviations.  We  must  navigate  these 
currents  by  adjustments  suited  to  their  laws. 

I  believe  in  American  citizens,  and  abhor  any  intimation 
that  that  citizenship  has  a  basis  in  anything  but  manhood. 
Riches  do  not  make  citizenship.  The  thought  now  urged  in 
demagogic  and  socialistic  agitation  that  there  is  a  class  in  this 
country  downtrodden  and  oppressed  by  the  rich  is  an  im- 
pertinence and  an  insult  to  our  intelligent  working  peo- 
ple and  mechanics.  It  is  an  anarchistic  importation.  Noth- 
ing can  oppress  us  but  our  own  voluntary  ignorance  and 

ix 


PREFACE 

vices.  So  little  patience  have  I  with  the  attempt  to  create 
classes  in  this  country  that  I  hesitate  even  to  discuss  the  sub- 
ject, lest  by  inference  I  recognize  it  as  a  tendency  of  our 
constitutional  government. 

We  all  have  enormous  opportunities.  We  need  only  to 
put  into  them  faith  in  our  possibilities,  wisdom  in  the  use 
of  our  resources,  reverence  of  our  time,  and  devout  grati- 
tude to  the  "  Giver  of  every  good  and  perfect  gift." 

I  wish  to  acknowledge  the  courtesy  of  Fan  Nordens 
Magazine  and  Leslie's  Weekly  in  permitting  me  to  use  por- 
tions of  articles  which  I  had  furnished  to  those  periodicals. 

J.  R.  D. 

Syracuse  University, 
August  ID,  1907. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — The  New  Age i 

II. — New  Proportions 19 

III. — ^The  Citizen 37 

IV. — The  Rights  of  Speech 52 

V. — Reactionaries 69 

VI. — Stretching  the  Constitution        ....  84 

VII. — Rights  of  Corporate  Business      ....  103 

VIII. — The  Corporations      .        .       .       .     '  .       .       .120 

IX.— The  Corporations — Continued        ....  139 

X. — The  Standard  Oil  Company 157 

XI. — Standard  Oil  Defended  by  Economic  Writers.  174 

XII. — The  Standard  Oil  Company  in  Court       .       .  191 

XIII. — Exact  Justice 2H 

XIV. — ^Swollen  Fortunes 231 

XV. — ^Charitable  Trusts 248 

XVI. — Tainted  Money 264 

XVII. — Labor  Unions 283 

XVIII. — WoRKINGMEN             ........  3OO 

XIX. — The  Remedy 317 

XX. — Men  for  the  Times 336 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 


CHAPTER    I 

THE    NEW  AGE 

WE  cannot  overestimate  the  value  of  a  full 
acquaintance  with  the  ages  that  have 
preceded  us  since  they  are  storehouses 
out  of  which  we  may  bring  much  that  will  greatly 
aid  us  to  an  appreciation  and  to  a  proper  use  of 
our  times.  Since  history  constantly  repeats  itself,  by 
tracing  the  course  of  peoples  gone  we  shall  find  that 
many  of  those  experiments  with  which  men  are  now 
meddling  in  philosophy  and  religion  and  practical 
affairs  have  been  tried  and  have  failed  because  of  in- 
herent defects,  while  much  more  that  engrosses  the 
present  age  has  always  ministered  to  the  highest  in- 
terests of  man.  Among  such  archives  we  shall  dis- 
cover many  things  that  will  modify  the  conceits  of 
the  twentieth  century  and  much  that  will  prove  help- 
ful for  the  solving  of  perplexities  that  now  confront 
us  in  many  departments  of  human  endeavor. 

But  valuable  as  the  past  is  to  us,  its  chief  value  is 
in  interpreting  for  us  the  present.     Ancient  petrifac- 

I 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

tlons  and  historic  embalmments  tell  the  story  of  how 
peoples  have  lived  in  their  times,  and  from  it  we 
learn  lessons  for  practical  application  to  our  en- 
deavors. Our  business  is  the  making  of  an  ever  on- 
coming age, 

Man  must  be  more  than  a  collator  and  venerator 
of  what  has  been.  He  must  create  history  for  ages 
yet  to  be.  If  he  may  look  upon  the  past  he  must, 
like  Janus,  have  a  face  on  both  sides  of  his  head 
that  he  may  be  always  apprehending  the  future  as 
well.  But  while  it  is  our  duty  to  appreciate  these 
times,  our  ability  to  arrive  at  a  just  comprehension 
of  the  age  may  not  be  so  clear.  We  confess  that  to 
take  a  comprehensive  and  discriminating,  a  philo- 
sophical and  practical  view  of  the  times  we  live  in, 
is  not  a  trifling  matter — is  not  an  easy  thing  to  do. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  most  difficult  task.  If  it  does 
not  demand  the  acroamatic  skill  for  the  solution  of 
abstruse  subtiltles  it  certainly  does  call  for  the  acro- 
batic feat  of  swinging  oneself  above  the  dust  of 
party  strife  and  beyond  the  Influence  of  all  those 
prejudices  which  so  confuse  the  vision  and  bewilder 
the  judgment.  Bacon  says  that  "  the  understanding 
of  man  Is  like  a  mirror  which  is  not  true  and  so 
mixing  Its  own  Imperfections  with  the  nature  of 
things  distorts  and  perverts  them."  For  example, 
old  age  indulges  In  Imaginative  memory.  Youth 
Indulges  in  Imaginative  hope.  Neither  Is  accurate, 
but  both  are  overdrawn  and  overcolored.  So  for 
want  of  an  accurate  memory  and  unprejudiced  com- 

2 


THE   NEW   AGE 

parisons  there  always  are  some  who  do  injustice  to 
the  present  in  their  recollection  of  the  past.  There 
are  people  who  say  there  are  no  such  orators  as  in 
the  days  of  Clay,  Webster,  and  Wirt,  no  statesmen 
like  those  who  ruled  the  destinies  of  the  earlier  Re- 
public, no  poets  like  those  whose  verses  they  recited 
in  childhood,  no  preachers  like  those  under  whose 
sermons  they  used  to  sleep  fifty  years  ago. 

But  the  fact  is  things  appear  not  only  as  they 
are  but  often  as  they  are  not,  according  as  we  may 
look  at  them  or  the  media  through  which  they  are 
seen.  You  recall  that  this  is  the  theory  of  colors 
and,  in  fact,  of  seeing.  Dr.  Thomas  Young  showed 
us  that  in  the  human  eye  there  are  certain  nerve 
fibers  which  respond  to  certain  waves  of  ether  and 
produce  the  sensations  of  the  colors.  There  are 
three  kinds  of  these  fibers  at  least  and  the  combina- 
tions effected  produce  all  of  the  colors  of  the  spec- 
trum. There  is  the  one  class  which  when  Irritated 
produces  the  sensation  of  red,  the  second  the  sen- 
sation of  green,  and  the  third  that  of  violet. 
The  first  is  excited  by  the  waves  of  ether  of  the 
greatest  length,  the  second  by  the  middle  waves,  and 
those  which  convey  the  impressions  of  violet  are 
created  by  the  shortest  vibrations  of  ether.  Now  it 
sometimes  happens  that  when  one  of  these  nerve 
fibers  is  defective  the  person  is  by  just  so  much  color- 
blind. In  some  the  fiber  responding  to  red  is  de- 
fective and  they  cannot  see  any  difference  between 
red  and  green  or  violet.    The  color  of  a  blossom  and 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

a  leaf  Is  all  the  same  to  them.  Because  of  this  de- 
fect men  have  made  great  physical  mistakes. 

There  arc  a  great  many  people  in  the  world  who 
are  troubled  with  mental  color  blindness.  These 
persons  will  of  course  represent  things  as  they  see 
them,  while  often  that  which  they  see  is  in  their 
eyes  and  not  in  the  thing  seen.  In  looking  at  our 
times  we  must  make  due  allowance  for  our  nerve 
fibers,  otherwise  we  may  make  grievous  mistakes 
and  become  the  victims  of  just  ridicule. 

We  must  remember  that  our  profession,  our 
calling,  the  educational  course  over  which  we  hav^e 
come,  our  national  pride,  our  social  bias,  our  physi- 
cal temperament,  our  digestion  even,  will  have  much 
to  do  with  the  way  things  will  appear  to  us.  The 
time  of  life  also  at  which  the  painting  is  made, 
whether  in  the  rosy  morning  or  the  evening  shadows 
or  the  full  golden  splendor  of  the  noon,  will  effect 
very  materially  the  coloring  of  the  picture. 

With  such  reflections  we  can  fortify  ourselves 
against  the  charge  of  pessimism  with  which  I  have 
no  sympathy.  For  though  I  cannot  exactly  accept  the 
rose-tinted  view  of  our  age  I  have  less  sympathy 
with  the  pessimistic  waitings  that  too  often  enter  into 
a  discussion  of  the  times  in  which  we  live. 

We  live  in  a  choice  age.  There  never  has  been 
a  subllmer  arena  since  creation  than  that  which 
awaits  the  young  man  to-day.  I  am  not  an  op- 
timist with  regard  to  the  times.  Neither  do  I  be- 
lieve in  the  impending  crash  of  all  tilings  good  and 

4 


THE    NEW   AGE 

great  which  some  men  think  they  see.  I  feel  no 
rumble  of  earthquakes  opening  their  jaws  to  swal- 
low us  up.  I  hear  only  the  thunder  of  glaciers 
launching  icebergs  under  the  heat  of  the  early  sum- 
mer sun.  I  see  a  mighty  growth  and  giant  uplift 
and  hear  the  consequent  cracking  and  snapping  off 
of  some  dead  and  moss-covered  branches  which 
sometimes  split  back  promising  growths  as  they  fall. 
It  is  to  guard  such  growth  that  I  speak. 

But  after  we  admit  all  that  is  bad  and  listen  to 
the  mutterings  of  every  storm  threatening  in  our 
widely  expanding  skies,  our  times  are  the  grandest 
this  world  ever  has  known.  There  never  were 
greater  men  than  those  who  project  our  vast  achieve- 
ments, nor  men  who  should  receive  in  a  larger  de- 
gree the  confidence  of  the  people.  To  such  men  the 
reins  should  be  given. 

We  are  multiform — more  so  than  men  of  any 
previous  age.  In  this  regard  we  differ  decidedly  from 
the  epochs  that  have  preceded  us.  Other  periods 
of  human  history  are  more  like  the  early  formations 
of  our  earth,  our  own  resembles  the  later  upheavals 
and  intersections.  In  the  structure  of  some  portions 
of  our  earth  we  recognize  great  creative  epochs  and 
that  there  was  a  time  when  the  periods  were  regu- 
larly tabulated  on  the  rocky  strata.  Each  forma- 
tion was  marked  and  distinctly  defined  with  these 
stratigraphical  characters.  There  was  order  from 
foundation  to  summit  and  every  layer  was  recog- 
nizable from  Laurentian  to  Pliocene.     But  the  evi- 

3  5 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

dences  are  that  at  a  later  date  there  was  an  eruption 
which  resulted  in  a  confusion  of  these  epochs  and 
now  we  have  "  the  formations  horizontal,  vertical, 
inclined,  contorted,  and  undulated,  and  the  older  is 
frequently  superimposed  upon  the  more  recent."  So 
that  the  near  surface  of  our  modern  earth  contains 
fragments  of  every  formative  period.  Among  them 
and  over  them  the  husbandman  drives  his  plow,  lit- 
tle thinking  perhaps  that  his  beautiful  earth  with 
its  valleys  and  hills,  its  enameled  meadows  and 
castellated  mountains  is  a  contribution  of  all  of  the 
ages. 

So  has  it  been  with  human  history.  There  have 
been  well-defined  ages  with  their  lines  of  demarca- 
tion sharply  drawn  and  their  character  made  distinct 
by  some  one  thought  or  movement  or  phase  of 
human  progress.  So  we  hear  about  the  stone  age 
and  the  iron  age  and  the  ages  of  bronze  and  brass 
and  there  have  been  ages  in  architecture  and  ages 
of  literature  and  ages  of  art  and  ages  of  philosophy, 
each  of  a  peculiar  type  and  each  with  its  own  and 
appropriate  name.  There  have  been  ages  ancient, 
mediaeval,  and  modern,  and  men  have  marked  the 
time  when  many  of  these  began  and  when  they 
ended  as  we  calendar  the  weeks  of  the  year.  But 
when  you  come  to  inquire  about  our  age,  it  is 
like  the  superficial  structure  of  the  earth  which  is 
composed  of  all  the  creative  periods.  It  is  the 
cumulation  of  all  the  times.  It  is  like  our  archi- 
tecture   which    combines    Hindoo,    Egyptian,    Gre- 

6 


THE    NEW   AGE 

cian,  Roman,  Italian,  and  English  with  their  styles 
Doric,  Ionic,  Gothic,  Corinthian,  Pyramidal,  and 
varieties  purely  modern  and  nameless.  It  is  like  our 
language  which  is  composed  of  all  the  languages.  It 
is  like  our  climate  within  whose  broad  expanse  dif- 
ferent zones  of  temperature  and  flora  are  found 
from  the  pines  of  Maine  to  the  semitropic  fruits 
and  flowers  of  Florida  and  California. 

All  ages  have  been  fused  into  the  twentieth 
century  and  we  are  living  In  the  universal  times 
— met  in  every  department  of  life  by  the  facts  and 
forms  and  fancies  of  other  continents,  of  other 
peoples,  of  other  ages.  In  all  of  our  considerable 
cities  the  four  corners  of  the  earth  are  represented, 
the  traditions  of  all  lands  are  venerated.  We  -are 
in  the  track  of  the  nations  of  the  world — the  old 
world  on  our  East,  the  older  world  on  our  West. 
We  are  the  Mecca  to  which  the  tribes  of  the  earth 
have  come  up.  Jerusalem  In  her  day,  situated  simi- 
larly in  her  relation  to  surrounding  nations,  was  far 
less  cosmopolitan  when  the  gift  of  tongues  was  nec- 
essary to  publish  the  glad  tidings  to  the  masses 
flocking  to  her  feasts  for  worship  and  for  gain,  than 
are  we  of  the  Yankee  land  and  the  Yankee  times. 

The  same  Is  true  of  our  arts  and  of  many  of 
our  Inventions.  They  are  contributed  often  by  other 
ages  and  peoples  In  the  germ  at  least  and  we  evolve 
them.  Roger  Bacon  claims  the  discovery  of  our 
gunpowder.  The  magnetic  needle  guided  the  mari- 
ner centuries  before  we  became  a  colony  even  and 

7 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERri  Y 

Solomon  De'Caus  would  doubtless  have  anticipated 
our  locomotive  had  not  the  Ignorance  and  super- 
stition of  that  time  flung  him  Into  a  lunatic  asylum 
for  his  advanced  thinking. 

You  see  that  our  times  are  Inventing  the  old 
times  over  again.  Shall  we  not  say  that  this  Is  true 
of  philosophy,  of  science,  of  art,  of  poetry?  while 
our  religion  Is  that  which  was  from  the  beginning, 
bloomed  out  into  beauty  In  the  gospel  of  the  new 
commandment  and  the  beatitudes. 

This  is  an  explanation  of  the  conflict  of  our 
times,  the  all  kinds  of  theories,  professions,  and 
claims.  Inventions  praised  and  inventions  jeered, 
philosophies  accepted  as  practical  and  philosophies 
pitied  as  chimerical,  religion  venerated  and  religion 
branded  as  the  reproduction  of  forms  of  supersti- 
tion, men  called  original  and  more  men  accused  as 
imitators  as  men  may  or  may  not  discover  the  old 
in  the  new  form. 

But  If  our  times  are  made  up  of  the  olden  times, 
we  put  our  mark  upon  the  age  so  Indelibly  that  the 
thought,  the  distinctive  character  of  these  times  will 
be  borne  down  to  the  latest  limit  of  human  existence 
and  our  times  will  be  an  epoch  In  the  world's  gray 
centuries.  As  the  drift  has  scratched  and  marked 
every  eruptive  rock  which  has  presumed  to  push  up 
into  the  sunlight,  so  the  nineteenth  century  has 
stamped  her  mark  on  all  of  the  past  that  has 
crowded  in  upon  these  modern  times  and  these  lines 
are  laid  so  deep,  these  forms  are  so  recast  that  the 

8 


THE   NEW   AGE 

crashing  events  of  coming  ages  can  never  destroy 
them. 

We  are  chiseling  the  nude  out  of  the  marble,  we 
are  painting  the  lewd  out  of  the  canvas,  we  are 
writing  the  obscene  out  of  literature,  we  are  lift- 
ing the  vapors  from  philosophy,  we  are  letting  the 
inventors  out  of  the  lunatic  asylums,  we  are  strip- 
ping the  husks  from  religion  and  discovering  in  it 
the  finest  of  the  wheat,  we  are  breaking  through  the 
guesses  of  life  into  life's  sublime  realities,  and  these 
imprints,  like  the  fern  marks  in  the  rocks,  shall  go 
with  this  century  into  its  future  and  tell  to  other 
generations  the  manner  of  people  we  are. 

We  have  doubtless  been  impressed  with  the  in- 
tensity of  our  times.  This  intensity  is  perhaps  the 
type  by  which  we  shall  be  distinguished.  The  ma- 
terials of  the  structure  have  been  furnished  largely 
by  the  times  preceding  us,  but  their  adjustment  and 
their  employment  are  discovered  in  the  spirit  of  our 
age.  The  different  parts  of  the  engine  have  been 
brought  up  from  the  four  corners  of  the  earth.  Our 
times  have  set  them  up,  utilized  them,  and  put  on 
steam.  And  this  genius  and  power  are  the  peculiar 
property  of  the  times.  Had  the  centuries  sent  up 
on  the  shores  of  any  other  continent  or  peoples  the 
treasures  which  their  tides  have  borne  to  us,  results 
would  have  been  far  different.  But  we  contemplate 
nothing  with  indifference.  Our  age  and  our  people 
burn  with  an  unquenchable  spirit.  Our  whole  age 
is  vital  with  activity.     The  air  we  breathe  is  spirit 

9 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

force.  Never  before  have  men  lived  so  fast.  We 
are  impatient  with  space  and  time. 

It  is  said  that  not  long  since  a  man  rushed  into 
a  telegraph  office  in  Boston  and  inquired  how  long 
it  would  take  to  send  a  telegraph  dispatch  to  San 
Francisco.  "  Twenty  minutes,"  was  the  reply.  "  I 
cannot  wait,"  he  answered,  and  hurried  out  again. 
This  incident  illustrates  the  age.  Comfort,  life, 
safety,  composure,  morals  are  often  sacrificed  to 
speed.  When  a  railroad  train  rushes  over  an  embank- 
ment and  hurls  a  score  of  souls  into  eternity,  men  in- 
vent another  danger  signal  and  crowd  on  steam.  Men 
used  to  send  men  with  their  messages,  but  now  they 
send  lightning.  Men  once  lifted  heavy  weights 
with  lever  and  windlass,  but  now  they  lift  them  with 
dynamite  and  the  electric  spark.  If  by  tunneling  the 
mountain  a  given  point  may  be  reached  a  few  min- 
utes sooner  than  by  going  around,  a  million  of 
money  is  no  consideration.  The  mountain  is  tun- 
neled. To  conquer  time  is  the  master  passion  of 
the  hour.  As  the  years  fly  by,  the  head  is  constantly 
taxed  to  add  another  mile  to  the  schedule,  to  take 
another  minute  from  the  time-table. 

This  intense  passion  is  both  fortunate  and  un- 
fortunate. It  becomes  a  part  of  the  man.  It  is 
discovered  in  something  more  than  his  conquest  over 
physical  obstacles,  time,  and  space.  And  this  comes 
about  by  the  slave  becoming  the  master.  By  his 
own  inventions  man  is  made  a  slave.  When  he  in- 
vented the  railway  plan  of  travel  and  the  telegraphic 

lo 


THE    NEW   AGE 

method  of  doing  business  he  levied  upon  himself  an 
enormous  tax  of  haste  and  speed,  for  the  maker 
must  keep  up  with  the  thing  made.  Much  is  said 
about  labor-saving  machines.  They  are  called  man's 
tireless  servants.  This  is  true  in  part,  but  they  are 
also  his  taskmaster,  so  that  where  they  lift  from 
him  toil  they  add  friction,  when  they  lighten  burdens 
they  bring  wear  and  tear. 

The  excitement  and  rush  of  these  times  with 
their  inventions,  political  agitations,  money-getting 
fevers,  and  jostle  for  fame  are  a  terrible  strain  upon 
human  endurance.  The  effects  are  visible.  We 
wonder  at  so  many  sudden  deaths  and  shattered  con- 
stitutions and  business  failures  and  moral  lapses.  It 
is  largely  because  these  human  engines  are  over- 
crowded. Nerves  that  are  always  on  the  tension 
must  some  time  snap.  If  men  will  go  fast  they  must 
arrive  sooner.  If  men  drive  with  loose  rein,  it  will 
not  be  strange  if  the  stop  is  sudden,  startling,  and 
fatal.  It  will  not  be  surprising  if  the  old  man  with 
whitened  locks,  the  village  patriarch,  becomes  un- 
known to  future  generations  if  this  lightning  life  is 
to  be  the  leading  characteristic  of  our  times. 

This  leads  to  the  thought  that  these  are  times 
of  great  possibility.  To  the  intensity  of  the  age  is 
due  this  fact.  Our  impatient,  energetic  life  renders 
perhaps  some  things  impossible.  We  do  not  take 
the  time  to  do  patient,  plodding  work.  Rare,  in- 
deed, are  the  instances  among  us  of  a  man  giving 
himself  to  one  thought  for  a  lifetime.     Our  thinkers 

1 1 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

seem  more  inclined  to  be  superficial  with  many  things 
than  profound  in  one.  We  will  not  let  men  alone 
long  enough  to  become  philosophers,  to  become 
great  in  literature,  science,  or  art.  Our  times  tend 
to  make  smatterers.  Our  authors,  instead  of  send- 
ing down  a  great  book  at  distant  intervals,  are 
scattering  their  volumes  and  pamphlets  as  the  decidu- 
ous trees  drop  their  leaves,  so  that  our  creations 
lack  the  giant  strength  of  the  slow-going  German's 
exhaustive  book  and  the  thoroughness  of  the  English 
essayist's  production. 

We  sparkle  like  wine.  We  lack  the  deep,  broad 
channel  of  the  patient  river.  Our  times  will  scarcely 
permit  that  yet.  Push  and  eagerness  still  make  our 
school  curricula  summer  days  and  hurry  our  stu- 
dents out  of  their  novitiate  into  the  spheres  of  active, 
crowded  life  before  the  spring  morning  of  charac- 
ter has  fairly  dav/ned.  Our  apprentices  are  turned 
out  workmen  in  three  years.  Our  brothers  across 
the  waters  work  seven.  Our  student  is  a  savant  in 
four  years.  Our  cousins  over  the  way  study  half  a 
lifetime  preparatory  to  some  one  work  that  shall 
occupy  the  next  half  of  life.  In  our  chase  for  the 
West  we  cannot  afford  such  waste.  With  our  face 
toward  the  mountain  and  our  rush  for  the  summit 
we  lose  the  fairest  visions  of  life.  But  we  gain  also. 
And  perhaps  we  can  afford  to  go  faster  since  our 
cousins  are  willing  and  positioned  to  do  the  slow 
work.  We  can  let  them  sit  in  the  dust  and  knock 
the  mortar  off  the  old  bricks  and  clear  away  the 

12 


THE   NEW   AGE 

rubbish  since  we  are  permitted  with  clicking  trowel 
and  hopeful  hearts  to  rear  the  lofty  walls  of  a  new 
civilization  of  symmetrical  and  astonishing  propor- 
tions. 

Our  physical  achievements,  our  inventions,  our 
useful  arts,  our  conquerors  of  material  force,  these 
are  our  philosophies.  Our  telegraph,  whose  mys- 
teries flash  through  the  hidden  deeps  of  the  sea  and 
sing  on  the  mountain  tops,  is  our  latest  metaphysics. 
Our  telephone,  whose  numbers  vibrate  along  the 
subtle  paths  of  natural  force,  is  our  last  poem.  We 
are  intense,  but  we  are  making  swift  strides  into  the 
kingdom  of  conquerable  mysteries. 

Our  possibilities  are  found  in  the  wonderful 
physical  development  of  the  age.  Because  of  con- 
quered space  and  time  we  can  accomplish  in  a  day 
what  our  fathers  could  not  do  in  months.  In  that 
time  a  man  might  have  grown  old  in  an  attempt  to 
circuit  the  globe.  We  circle  the  world  in  a  summer 
vacation.  Look  at  the  possibilities  of  travel.  How 
long  and  tedious  journeys  were!  Men  spent  weeks 
in  going  a  few  hundred  miles  and  back.  And  there 
was  no  hurry  or  impatience.  They  had  the  time, 
for  nobody  else  could  go  quicker.  You  have  been 
interested  doubtless  in  reading  of  the  composure  of 
those  good  old  days  when  men  never  knew  what 
day  they  would  start  or  when  they  would  come  back. 
One  wrote  of  those  times:  "  Here  one  may  be  trans- 
ported without  overviolent  motion  and  sheltered 
from  the  influence  of  the  air,  with  so  much  speed 

13 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

that  some  of  these  coaches  will  go  above  fifty  miles 
on  a  summer  day."  And  another  wrote:  "  The  like 
of  it  hath  not  been  known  in  the  world." 

That  was  all  the  speed  they  wanted  in  those 
days,  for  when  over  there  in  England  George 
Stephenson,  within  the  memory  of  some  men  now 
living,  began  to  talk  about  the  railway,  pamphleteers 
were  hired  to  ridicule  railroads.  It  was  said  they 
would  prevent  the  cows  grazing  and  hens  laying! 
The  poisoned  air  from  locomotives  would  kill  the 
birds  as  they  flew  over  them  and  it  would  no  longer 
be  possible  to  hunt  foxes  and  pheasants.  There 
would  be  no  more  use  for  horses,  and  oats  and  hay 
would  not  be  salable.  Country  inns  would  be  de- 
serted and  the  boilers  would  burst  and  blow  things 
up  generally. 

Men  of  science  declared  that  people  could  not 
travel  at  the  fearful  speed  of  fifteen  or  twenty  miles 
an  hour  and  keep  their  heads ! 

In  Nuremberg,  that  famous  city  of  brains  and 
progressive  ideas,  the  physicians  met  and  formally 
protested  against  a  proposed  railway.  They  declared 
that  it  should  be  prohibited  in  the  interest  of  public 
health,  for  the  rapid  movements  could  not  fail  to 
produce  in  the  passengers  the  mental  ailment  known 
as  delirium  furiosum!  They  further  said:  "If  the 
passengers  will  run  the  risk,  the  State  can  do  no  less 
than  protect  the  bystanders.  The  sight  alone  of  a 
locomotive  passing  at  full  speed  is  sufllicient  to  pro- 
duce this  frightful  malady  of  the  brain.     It  is  there- 

14 


THE   NEW   AGE 

fore  indispensable  that  a  barrier  six  feet  high  be 
erected  on  both  sides  of  the  track." 

That  was  the  measure  of  those  times  physically. 
We  are  in  another  world  and  another  age.  Fifty 
miles  a  day  then.  The  like  had  not  been  known  since 
the  world  began.  Now  sixty  miles  an  hour.  Now 
the  business  man  gets  into  his  car  in  the  morning, 
rushes  away  three  hundred  miles,  transacts  impor- 
tant business,  and  is  home  for  the  evening  with  his 
family.  We  set  our  watches  by  the  mile  posts  of 
the  great  railways. 

We  need  not  remind  you  of  the  wire  that  speaks 
with  a  tongue  of  lightning.  How  a  merchant  may 
sit  in  his  office  in  New  York  and  order  a  cargo  of 
figs  from  Smyrna  or  a  cargo  of  tea  from  China  or 
a  cargo  of  laces  from  Belgium  or  a  cargo  of  silks 
from  France  or  a  cargo  of  ship  spars  frpm  Victoria 
or  Seattle  and  receive  an  answer  that  same  fore- 
noon. By  these  physical  possibilities  man  accom- 
plishes a  thousandfold  more  than  in  ancient  ages. 
You  lament  that  you  have  not  Methuselah's  age. 
You  have  it  multiplied  by  lightning  and  steam.  He 
had  none  too  much  time  at  the  gait  he  had  to  go. 

Man's  life  the  Bible  says  is  not  in  years  but  in 
deeds.  Measured  by  events,  none  have  ever  lived 
so  long  as  we  are  living.  If  man  has  not  been  able 
to  push  forward  the  length  of  human  life  to  patri- 
archal age  or  to  make  enduring  the  fragmentary 
years,  he  has  scored  against  the  flight  of  time  a  life 
mammoth  in  the  magnitude  of  its  scenes  and  events 

15 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

and  achievlngs.  He  Is  old  in  conquered  worlds 
while  he  is  young  in  years.  I  here  is  more  in  a  year 
of  a  young  man's  life  than  in  a  generation  of  his 
patriarchal  ancestors. 

Man  molded  matter  into  various  coarse  and  tan- 
gible forms.  The  seven  wonders  of  the  world 
wrought  from  it  were  statues,  pyramids,  and  hang- 
ing gardens.  Men  brought  from  crude  materials 
crude  works.  They  endure  as  mountains  endure. 
They  are  heaped-up  rocks  and  sand.  They  are 
monumental  to  muscular  strength  and  expenditure  of 
physical  resources.  In  our  age  the  clay  has  become 
a  living  soul.  The  angel  has  broken  into  pieces  the 
marble  and  escaped.  Magnitude,  weight,  distance, 
physical  conflict,  the  end  and  glory  of  ages  gone  are 
but  the  shaftings  and  pulleys  of  our  vast  movements 
and  power. 

We  use  the  forces  that  sent  the  worlds  forth 
upon  their  eternal  pilgrimages  and  kindled  the  fires 
of  the  unfading  stars  and  set  the  seas  to  throbbing 
with  their  mighty,  ceaseless  heartbeats.  Man  stands 
now  with  his  hand  on  the  lever  and  with  steam 
at  his  command  he  rushes  across  the  continent 
of  sea  or  land  with  a  whole  community  of  fellow 
beings  committed  to  his  trust.  He  calls  the  light- 
nings out  of  their  infinite  mystery  and  they  obey 
him.  One  day  at  Hell  Gate  in  New  York  I  saw 
them.  Obeying  the  touch  of  a  child's  tiny  finger, 
they  lifted  an  island  of  rock  out  of  the  tides  whose 
assaults  it  had  resisted  for  untold  ages,  and  before 

i6 


THE   NEW   AGE 

the  smoke  cleared  away  published  the  news  In  every 
quarter  of  the  globe. 

Amazing  forces!  Man  is  filled  with  gaping 
wonder  over  his  own  works.  It  is  the  gods  whom 
he  has  enslaved  and  set  grinding  at  his  mills.  He 
gazes  at  them  at  their  toil  with  ever  unanswered 
queries  upon  his  countenance.  Every  day  from  St. 
John  to  Puget  Sound  he  puts  ten  hundred  thousand 
heads  out  of  factory  and  home  windows  and  stops 
millions  of  people  in  village  streets  and  country 
roads  and  in  the  fields  to  look  upon  the  palaces  of 
the  gods  as  they  roll  by  at  fifty  miles  an  hour,  and 
every  evening  he  calls  the  populace  of  every  con- 
siderable town  and  city  to  wonder  at  the  earth's  new 
satellites  burning  with  the  luster  of  the  North  star. 

Man  is  feeling  the  propulsive  energy  of  the  spirit 
force  of  the  universe.  Great  things  are,  our  inheri- 
tance and  great  achievements  are  forced  upon  us. 
They  are  not  vulgar  nor  exaggerated.  They  are 
natural  and  proportioned  to  the  man  who  must 
measure  up  to  this  age. 

And  they  are  intensely  practical.  Heat,  light, 
electricity,  immeasurable,  inexhaustible  forces  both 
created  and  used  by  God  In  creation  are  as  common 
as  horses.  As  Emerson,  often  quoted,  has  said: 
"  Man  has  taken  the  chariot  of  the  sun  for  a  market 
cart."  Over  the  highways  of  the  gods,  piercing  all 
mountains  and  suspended  across  all  valleys,  he  sends 
his  beef  and  wheat  to  market  and  under  the  electric 
light  mends  shoes. 

17 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

It  Is  within  such  an  age  that  our  Republic  has 
arisen.  It  was  here  to  receive  this  enormous  in- 
heritance. It  is  to  prove  whether  such  a  form  of 
government  can  endure  the  strain  of  these  inter- 
active forces  and  it  is  to  be  tested  by  conditions  such 
as  no  Republic  ever  was  subjected  to  since  the  world 
began. 

We  are  in  a  new  world  as  literally  as  if  we  had 
been  transplanted  to  some  other  planet.  Old  times 
are  not  a  precedent.  Old  proportions  are  not  a 
formula  for  these  new  activities.  The  seer  of  large 
and  clear  visions  undismayed  is  our  prophet  of  to- 
morrow. The  captain  who  navigated  the  sailing 
shallop  of  the  yesterday's  world  would  run  this 
steamship  ashore. 


CHAPTER    II 

NEW    PROPORTIONS 

MANUFACTURE  and  commerce  are  tre- 
mendous instruments  of  civilization. 
And  the  accumulation  of  wealth  Is  the 
multiplication  of  man's  powers  of  noble  conquest.  It 
is  the  measure  of  possibilities  in  subduing  the  lands 
and  seas,  in  the  institutions  of  the  State,  in  educa- 
tion and  the  Church,  In  the  development  of  the 
earth's  resources  and  the  application  of, them  to  the 
varied  demands  of  mankind.  It  is  a  prime  equation, 
when  properly  used,  of  civilization  and  the  mil- 
lennium. 

In  these  times  an  association  of  business  men 
stands  for  something  more  than  the  money-getting 
interests  of  a  great  community.  It  has  to  do  with 
the  expenditures  of  moneys  as  well,  in  the  interests 
of  all  the  people,  in  sanitation,  education,  and  all 
forms  of  thrift  and  morals.  It  perhaps  is  one  of 
the  most  public-spirited  Institutions  In  all  the  land. 
Its  scope  is  so  wide  that  it  is  unembarrassed  by  any 
possible  subject  into  which  one's  thought  and  discus- 
sion may  range — for  its  field  is  the  world.     For  in 

19 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

these  days  manufacture  and  commerce  are  the  patron 
saints  of  philosophy,  art,  and  letters,  of  war,  peace, 
and  religion,  of  invention,  discovery,  and  politics. 
Love  of  money  is  the  root  of  all  evil;  but  lawful 
money-making,  the  right  use  of  money  and  the  wis- 
dom of  the  money-makers  are  the  roots  of  all  prac- 
tical good — or  at  least  the  practical  application  of 
all  good. 

The  extent  to  which  manufacture  has  widened 
and  penetrated  all  human  interests  from  the  plow  to 
the  altar  reveals  the  pace  of  modern  thought.  It 
is  the  way  the  century  has  been  thinking  and  moving. 
It  is  the  faith  of  the  new  man  pushing  on  and  push- 
ing out.  It  is  irresistible.  I  suppose  the  first  move- 
ments of  migration  and  trade  were  inspired  by 
physical  consideration  exclusively.  It  was  to  get 
pasturage  for  flocks  and  to  find  food  more  abun- 
dant. But  now  civilization  is  the  great  goal  of 
manufacture  and  trade.  All  forms  of  business  vol- 
unteer their  offerings  to  discovery,  to  science,  to  the 
State.  We  have  a  new  concept,  broad,  worthy,  in 
which  no  man  is  to  live  for  himself.  We  are  to 
discover  not  trade  alone  but  duty  and  opportunity 
and  the  signs  of  God  that  shall  indicate  our  place 
and  part  in  the  mighty  struggle  to  emancipate  this 
world  and  give  it  in  every  part  liberty. 

Men  who  stand  protesting  against  this  logic  of 
events  represent  the  old  and  unworthy  commercial 
ideas.  A  nation  has  something  to  do  besides  exist 
upon   the   products   of   its   own   soil,    its   mines,    its 

20 


NEW   PROPORTIONS 

mechanical  arts  and  commerce.  That  is  civilized 
selfishness,  and  a  civilized  vice  is  the  worst  of  all 
vices.  If  it  were  only  a  question  of  the  develop- 
ment of  our  resources,  we  could  scarcely  more  than 
begin  in  a  thousand  years.  But  character,  con- 
science, thought,  ethics,  civilization,  are  mines  In- 
finitely richer  than  the  diamond  fields  of  the  tropic 
Transvaal  or  the  gold  seams  of  Arctic  Alaska. 
Some  men  in  these  days  are  standing  on  these 
mightier  mountains  and  looking  out  along  the  lines 
of  God's  thoughts.  Corporate  business  is  not  large 
to  them.  It  is  logical,  natural,  consistent.  It  has 
its  relation  to  commerce,  the  opening  of  vast  fields 
for  our  manufactures  and  cereals,  exports  and  im- 
ports. It  opens  lands  and  makes  homes.  It  is 
building  a  nation.  It  is  a  tremendous  agency  In  our 
obligation  and  opportunity  as  civilizers  and  educa- 
tors. It  means  our  red  schoolhouse  and  our  printing 
press  and  our  free  thought  and  our  Christian  faith 
for  the  wide  circuits  of  the  globe  under  all  flags. 
To  discuss  our  obligation  and  opportunities  on 
a  commercial  basis  simply  as  rates,  tariff,  competi- 
tion, is  small  and  unworthy.  To  reverse  the  pres- 
ent order  and  install  the  old  time  is  as  impossible  as 
it  would  have  been  for  the  colonists  to  sit  inactive 
upon  the  Atlantic  rim  of  the  country  with  a  west- 
ward continent  waiting  for  them.  Certain  men 
much  later  than  colonial  times  were  blind  and  deaf 
to  the  logic  of  a  new  world  and  new  opportunities. 
They  said  fifty  years  ago  that  all  west  of  the  MIs- 
3  21 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERllY 

sissippi  was  not  worth  the  trouble  of  contending 
over  the  boundary  line.  Senator  Benton,  whom  God 
afterwards  rebuked  with  a  son-in-law  known  as  the 
Pathfinder,  demanded  that  the  statue  of  the  god 
Terminus  be  set  up  at  the  Rocky  Mountains  as  the 
natural  western  limit  of  the  Republic.  You  remem- 
ber that  Senator  Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts,  said: 
"  We  shall  not  be  straitened  for  elbow  room  In  the 
West  for  a  thousand  years."  But  the  great  States  of 
California,  Oregon,  Washington,  Utah,  Idaho,  and 
Nevada  seem  a  very  natural  and  neighborly  part  of 
the  country  now.  And  as  It  Is  not  as  far  from  New 
York  to  Manila  as  It  used  to  be  from  the  Delaware 
breakwater  to  the  Golden  Gate,  very  soon  the  Philip- 
pines will  seem  as  logically  a  part  of  Uncle  Sam's 
domains  as  do  the  Pacific  Coast  States  to-day. 

This  land  cannot  crawl  Into  its  shell  again. 
Death  alone  can  keep  an  eagle  In  Its  shell  and  there 
Is  no  process  of  life  that  can  put  him  back  into  the 
shell  once  he  gets  out.  This  country  Is  between  the 
old  world  on  the  East  and  the  older  world  on  the 
West.  It  Is  related  physically  and  providentially  to 
all  mankind.  God  has  waited  just  long  enough  for 
It  to  grow  up,  seasoned  and  developed  It  by  tre- 
mendous experiences  within  Its  own  borders,  at  a  sort 
of  apprenticeship,  and  then  when  It  got  of  age  has 
sent  It  out  to  serve  the  world. 

That  this  tremendous  mission  of  the  United 
States  has  been  In  preparation  Is  seen  in  the  magni- 
tudes of  commercial  thought  and  enterprise  which, 

22 


NEW    PROPORTIONS 

while  filling  some  with  dismay  and  affording  the 
demagogue  a  text  and  an  opportunity,  are  neverthe- 
less the  calm  and  cool  logic  of  events.  It  perhaps 
has  been  the  only  land  where  these  great  problems 
could  be  worked  out  successfully.  Business  has  been 
taking  on  gigantic  proportions.  Individuals  have 
joined  together  brains  and  moneys  and  formed 
themselves  Into  corporations  because  they  could  make 
more  for  themselves  and  save  more  for  the  people, 
and  serve  more  the  mighty  Interests  of  their  country. 

It  is  because  these  men  form  corporations  that  we 
ride  at  fifty  miles  an  hour;  we  can  cross  from  New 
York  to  Liverpool  between  two  Sundays  and  run 
over  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco  In  four  days, 
and  enjoy  a  thousand  things  as  the  common  people 
that  fifty  years  ago  were  the  exclusive  luxury  of 
millionaires  and  princes.  The  millionaire  has  given 
the  comfort  of  the  millionaire  to  the  poor  man  and 
made  himself  miserable. 

In  the  good  old  times  when  they  had  no  grind- 
ing corporations  or  devilfish  trusts  with  their  ten- 
tacles on  the  throat  of  Individual  rights  and  privi- 
leges, you  could  have  traveled  on  a  canal  boat.  And 
If  you  were  In  a  hurry  you  could  have  gone  on  an 
express  canal  boat  drawn  by  three  mules  Instead  of 
two  mules.  But  in  any  event  you  would  have  been 
so  long  going  that  you  would  have  forgotten  where 
you  were  going  and  what  you  were  going  for  before 
you  reached  your  destination.  Time  spent  so  lav- 
ishly was  not  worth  much.     But  then  no  corporation 

23 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

was  grinding  that  captain  of  the  canal  boat  or  that 
mule  driver.  They  went  their  own  pace  leisurely. 
The  people  then  were  ground  only  between  the  tow- 
path  and  the  berm!  But  now  the  oppressive  and 
grinding  corporation  gives  you  a  seat  in  a  parlor  of 
palatial  furnishings  and  takes  you  along  from  New 
York  to  Buffalo  in  seven  and  three-fourth  hours,  in- 
stead of  ten  days  or  two  weeks.  It  Is  an  outrage 
that  a  merciless  corporation  should  exist  In  this  en- 
lightened age  that  will  hurl  a  man  through  the 
world,  around  curves  and  over  bevels  and  across 
bridges  at  such  a  terrific  rate  of  speed — and  tempt 
men  to  leave  the  secure  and  calm  pace  of  the  canal 
boat  by  charging  only  two  cents  a  mile,  with  which 
no  canal  man  can  compete.  Such  a  thing  Is  against 
competition,  has  restrained  the  traffic  of  the  canal 
boat  and  ought  to  be  Investigated  by  a  commission 
and  prosecuted. 

Business  used  to  do  its  work  by  longhand.  It 
now  does  It  by  shorthand.  A  typewriter  Is  Indispen- 
sable to  a  business  office.  The  average  price  Is  one 
hundred  dollars.  A  trust  has  made  It  cost  that.  If 
an  Individual  made  It,  It  would  cost  five  thousand 
dollars,  so  It  Is  said  by  those  who  have  computed 
the  cost.  The  transatlantic  liner  Is  one  of  the 
products  of  the  modern  corporation.  Such  massing 
of  wealth,  such  combined  skill,  such  diplomacy  of 
statesmanship  In  business  are  the  new  proportions  of 
a  new  age. 

I  wonder  If  any  one  of  those  men  who  opposed 

24 


NEW    PROPORTIONS 

these  mighty  proportions  when  they  first  appeared 
has  a  proud  and  boasting  grandson  in  these  days, 
who  boldly  declaims  that  his  grandfather  was  the 
clear-visioned  seer  who  predicted  the  appalling  evil 
of  the  modern  railway  and  tried  to  prevent  it. 
There  were  men  who  smashed  Arkwright's  loom  and 
Whitney's  cotton  gin  into  kindling  wood.  I  wonder 
if  anyone  is  boasting  in  these  days  that  his  grand- 
father was  the  man  who  did  it.  When  half  of  the 
next  century  is  gone,  you  cannot  find  on  this  continent 
any  man  who  will  admit  that  he  is  a  descendant  of 
the  pygmies  who  sought  to  destroy  these  mighty 
movements  of  manufacture  and  trade,  logically  pro- 
portionate to  this  tremendous  age,  who  tried  to 
reach  up  and  turn  the  shadow  back  on  the  dial  of 
God's  plan  of  human  progress.  The  magnitudes  of 
the  business  of  the  present  age  are  logical  events. 
Business  has  widened  into  vast  areas  of  which 
the  world  knew  nothing  prior  to  the  middle  of  this 
century  and  it  is  still  widening  by  all  the  cumulative 
force  of  the  most  marvelous  century  the  world  has 
ever  known.  And  there  is  no  surer  evidence  that 
we  have  not  kept  intellectual  pace  with  our  own 
progress  than  in  the  attitude  of  the  common  minds 
toward  the  great  corporations  and  business  forces  by 
which  we  are  moving  onward.  When  a  great  move- 
ment or  invention  or  discovery  is  resisted  by  the 
people,  it  shows  that  the  people  are  down  on  the 
plain  from  which  as  a  summit  or  high  range  that 
discovery  arises,  and  they  fear  it  is  the  upheaval  of 

25 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERn  Y 

a  volcano  threatening  their  destruction,  instead  of 
hailing  it  as  a  mountain  range  of  perpetual  springs 
and  fountains  out  of  which  are  to  flow  rivers  of  un- 
wasting  blessings  in  industry,  manufacture,  and  dis- 
tributed wealth  and  happiness. 

No  individual  can  use  such  capital  or  furnish  the 
executive  ability  for  such  achievements.  Men  must 
be  incorporated  and  money  massed  into  thousands  of 
millions  for  such  purposes.  It  is  the  enormous  times 
you  see  in  all  of  this.  And  it  is  idiocy  to  expect  to 
reverse  it.  And  the  man  who  is  shouting  himself 
hoarse  over  trusts  and  corporations  and  swollen  for- 
tunes will  take  his  place  in  history  with  the  men  w^ho 
smashed  Arkwright's  loom  and  Whitney's  cotton 
gin  and  the  pamphleteers  who  ridiculed  George 
Stephenson's  locomotive.  And  our  friends  who  at- 
tack the  mighty  movements  of  the  age  are  preparing 
for  their  posterity  no  greater  pride  of  ancestry. 

But  we  are  told  that  there  is  no  disposition  to 
destroy  the  great  forms  of  corporate  business  but 
just  an  attempt  to  regulate  them.  It  makes  little  dif- 
ference whether  you  destroy  them  by  direct  enact- 
ment or  regulate  them  to  death.  In  the  old  practice 
of  medicine  the  doctor  reduced  his  patient  by  purga- 
tives, blisters,  and  bleeding  to  get  the  disease  out, 
but  the  trouble  with  that  practice  was  that  the  life 
of  the  patient  went  out  with  the  disease. 

We  do  not  want  to  destroy  the  present  forms  of 
corporate  business,  but  we  will  discredit  them  and  em- 
barrass them  by  every  law  we  can  invent;  we  will 

26 


NEW    PROPORTIONS 

make  a  public  sentiment  that  will  encourage  every 
man  who  attempts  to  mulct  them;  we  will  sow 
dragons'  teeth  of  hate  in  every  corporation  plant, 
among  the  workingmen ;  we  will  brand  every  aggre- 
gation of  capital  and  corporate  wealth  as  an  octopus 
or  a  criminal  corporation;  we  will  talk  of  "preda- 
tory wealth,"  a  silly  jingle  of  words;  we  will  urge 
upon  careless-thinking  people  that  wealth  is  grind- 
ing them  and  that  cooperation  is  synonymous  with 
tyranny,  oppression,  and  gigantic  theft — thrift  and 
theft  meaning  the  same  thing;  and  then  we  will 
smite  upon  our  breasts  pharisaically  and  say:  "Ah, 
no,  we  do  not  oppose  the  natural  and  proportionate 
methods  of  the  twentieth  century.  We  want  to 
regulate  them  only!  " 

It  will  not  be  the  fault  of  insidious  socialism  in 
high  and  low  places,  of  yellow  journals  read  by 
workingmen  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  pa- 
pers, of  frenzied  magazines,  and  demagogic  agita- 
tors if  the  great  invested  capital  and  industries  of 
the  land  are  not  destroyed.  Certainly  there  is  noth- 
ing in  present  conditions  to  increase  their  credit  or 
to  strengthen  their  confidence. 

All  of  this  agitation  is  destructive.  And  much 
of  the  evil  that  has  grown  up  in  the  corporate  forms 
has  been  due  to  the  conflict  between  them  and  the 
inimical  forces  that  have  opposed  and  embarrassed 
them  in  legislatures,  newspaper  agitation,  and  popu- 
lar clamor.  That  there  has  been  much  for  just  criti- 
cism no  one  denies,  and  that  is  due  not  to  the  form 

27 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

of  business  but  to  the  human  nature  of  business.  It 
is  more  visible  because  in  greater  mass.  It  always 
exists  and  will  until  the  millennium. 

But  as  long  as  the  people  are  taught,  wickedly 
taught  by  the  agitators  of  various  types,  that  cor- 
porations have  for  their  purpose  the  robbing  of  the 
people  and  the  oppression  of  the  poor,  business  will 
be  obstructed  and  the  people  will  suffer  the  penalty 
of  their  folly. 

Such  attacks,  persistent  and  unreasoning,  are  not 
only  destructive  but  the  people  have  to  pay  for  the 
damage.  They  pay  it  in  increased  price  of  the  com- 
modity if  not  in  decreased  wage.  They  are  paying 
for  the  riotous  attacks  of  the  coal-mine  agitators  of 
a  few  years  ago.  They  will  pay  for  every  strike  and 
lawsuit  and  for  the  millions  now  being  lost  and  ex- 
pended in  harassing  all  forms  of  business  with  the 
politician's  investigations.  The  agitators  do  not  pay 
it,  the  corporations  will  not  charge  it  to  profit  and 
loss.  It  is  a  plain  case  of  the  people  fighting  their 
own  interests  and  paying  the  cost. 

It  is  folly  to  suppose  that  corporate  business  is 
not  directly  concerned  with  the  thrift  and  prosperity 
of  the  people.  That  is  its  chief  asset.  Its  policy 
is  a  large  volume  of  small  profits.  That  is  the  only 
way  small  profits  can  be  profitable.  To  place  prices 
beyond  the  ability  of  the  people  to  pay  is  business 
lunacy  and  destroys  those  who  do  it. 

There  is  no  form  of  investment  that  is  happier 
for  the  mechanic  and  workingman  than  corporate 

28 


NEW   PROPORTIONS 

stocks  of  the  reliable  concerns.  He  can  buy  a  share 
or  two  or  more  shares  and  have  an  investment  that 
earns  a  wage  with  him  and  increases  in  capital  value 
with  the  growth  of  the  business.  It  is  better  than 
the  savings  bank.  It  is  owning  the  savings  bank. 
In  many  forms  of  business  to-day  he  can  take  shares 
in  the  concern  with  which  he  works  and  contribute 
directly  to  the  success  of  his  own  property.  Tens 
of  thousands  of  men  who  never  in  any  age  or  cir- 
cumstance could  build  a  business  for  themselves  can 
in  this  way  accumulate  substantially  against  the  rainy 
day. 

Every  interest  and  common  good  of  our  country 
should  prompt  all  citizens  to  promote  harmony  be- 
tween capital  and  labor  as  a  work  of  loyalty,  and 
the  disturbance  of  this  confidence  by  exciting  hatred 
of  corporate  business,  by  exaggerating  ills  of  work- 
ingmen  or  appeals  to  passion  and  prejudice  should 
be  frowned  upon  as  treason  to  the  country  itself. 

The  reason  given  for  attacks  upon  corporate 
business  is  that  it  crushes  out  the  individual  and 
makes  it  impossible  for  smaller  forms  of  business  to 
flourish.  In  this  statement  it  is  assumed  that  this  is 
an  evil.  But  we  contend  that  it  may  be  and  for  the 
most  part  is  a  positive  good.  The  big  ship  swallows 
up  the  little  ships  and  the  dangers  and  discomforts 
of  the  sea;  the  big  trunk  line  absorbs  the  little  rail- 
ways and  tickets  you  through.  Twenty  little  shops 
fighting  each  "other  at  a  loss  appear  in  a  great  fac- 
tory with  profits. 

29 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

Men  are  incorporated  and  the  man  of  a  small 
business  becomes  the  superintendent  or  manager  of 
millions  of  invested  capital.  The  contention  that 
"  individuals  are  being  wiped  out  "  is  a  strange  one 
in  view  of  the  hosts  of  men  who  reach  successes 
which  if  of  a  subordinate  character  are  immeasur- 
ably beyond  anything  they  would  have  attained 
alone.  Instead  of  crippling  the  individual  the  cor- 
porations have  promoted  him.  They  encourage 
men  to  great  achievements  by  offering  the  mightiest 
opportunities  since  the  world  began. 

To  hear  the  agitators  you  would  suppose  that 
all  the  rich  were  ready-made  and  an  entailed  class, 
and  that  all  men  must  approach  success  from  that 
side,  and  that  the  poor  are  doomed  to  be  poor.  But 
with  rarest  exceptions  our  millionaires  and  business 
giants  have  come  up  from  the  ranks  of  the  poor. 
Nearly  every  one  of  them  came  up  over  the  road  of 
the  common  toiler  and  they  did  not  bring  the  road 
away  with  them. 

But  if  it  were  not  so  that  all  men  have  the  op- 
portunity left  to  them  which  other  men  have  used, 
you  cannot  legislate  a  common  success.  You  may 
want  a  thousand  men  to  do  the  business  that  ten  men 
control.  But  you  have  got  to  do  something  besides 
legislate  the  ten  men  out  of  business.  You  have  got 
to  make  the  nine  hundred  and  ninety  men  in  that 
particular  as  big  as  the  ten  men  unless  you  think 
that  small  men  are  best  for  the  world  and  its  enter- 
prises.   You  may  destroy  any  corporation  you  please 

30 


NEW    PROPORTIONS 

— Standard  Oil  if  you  choose,  or  United  States  Steel 
— and  the  business  will  not  go  into  the  management 
of  a  hundred  companies  and  ten  thousand  men.  It 
will  gravitate  to  its  center  and  be  managed  by  ten 
men.  It  is  a  law  as  pervasive  and  permanent 
as  gravitation.  The  pull  of  it  Is  toward  the 
center. 

It  is  stupendous  folly  to  talk  about  giving  in- 
dividuals a  chance  to  act  alone  by  forbidding  indi- 
viduals to  work  together !  It  is  a  very  old  fallacy. 
Paul  met  it  at  Ephesus  when  the  silversmiths  cried 
out,  "By  this  craft  we  have  our  wealth."  The  new 
doctrine  was  going  to  destroy  their  craft  and  trade. 
But  that  which  filled  them  with  fear  has  filled  the 
world  with  the  arts  and  crafts  of  civilization.  We 
are  not  to  adapt  things  to  individuals  but  to  the 
common  good,  and  individuals  must  adapt  themselves 
to  such  conditions. 

I  do  not  exist  for  the  store  in  my  city.  The 
store  exists  for  me  and  it  has  no  claim  upon  me  if 
another  can  serve  me  better.  Its  only  claim  is  what 
it  can  do  for  me.  If  a  corporation  can  do  for  me 
more  than  an  individual  can,  it  has  the  higher  claim. 
The  claim  is  established  by  service.  What  shall  the 
individual  do?  Join  the  corporation  or  work  for 
it  unless  he  can  find  some  way  to  do  more  for  me 
than  the  corporation  can.  The  old-time  stage  driver 
became  the  railway  conductor. 

At  any  rate  it  is  a  piece  of  insolence  for  the 
individual  to  insist  that  the  corporation  shall  be  dis- 

31 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

banded  because  it  sells  me  goods  cheaper  than  he 
can.  The  canal-boat  man  may  as  well  say  that  the 
New  York  Central  shall  tear  up  its  tracks  because 
it  carries  me  for  t^vo  cents  a  mile  and  he  cannot 
carry  me  for  less  than  ten,  and  the  train  will  take 
me  home  in  five  hours  and  the  canal  boat  would  do 
it  in  two  weeks  by  express! 

We  cannot  change  the  order  of  things.  The 
law  of  human  progress  is  not  a  statute  to  be  revised 
by  Congress.  Men  are  only  obeying  that  law  which 
no  man  can  annul — that  has  come  out  of  the  im- 
mutable principles  that  govern  among  peoples  of 
differing  capacities  and  aptitudes. 

Our  Congress  and  legislators  are  about  a  strange 
business  when  they  attempt  to  level  men  down. 
Transcendent  ability  is  welcomed  everywhere  except 
in  trade  and  commerce.  But  surely  we  do  not  ex- 
pect to  help  up  the  men  at  the  bottom  by  pulling 
men  down  from  the  top.  Who  are  the  men  who 
are  thought  to  threaten  the  country?  They  are  in- 
dividuals. Do  you  think,  if  you  displace  them,  other 
individuals  will  prosper?  And  is  the  country  under 
more  obligation  to  one  class  of  individuals  than  to 
another?  Is  it  obligated  more  to  the  independents 
than  to  the  corporations?  Are  you  going  to  say  to 
one  class  of  individuals :  You  have  had  your  success, 
now  give  this  other  class  a  chance?  Do  you  think 
that  is  the  province  of  government?  Do  you  think 
that  men  who  have  to  have  opportunities  made  for 
them  by  removing  other  men  out  of  their  way  are 

32 


NEW    PROPORTIONS 

going  to  use  their  opportunities  after  they  are  made 
for  them  ? 

Legislate  all  you  choose,  you  never  can  make  the 
great  men  do  small  things  or  the  small  men  do  great 
things.  Great  men  will  make  small  things  great  and 
you  cannot  stop  it  and  you  cannot  by  all  the  laws 
of  the  Solons  and  Numas  of  the  earth  make  a  small 
man  do  a  great  thing.  Every  man  will  work  in  his 
own  order.  If  we  get  misplaced,  legislation  will  not 
place  us.  We  have  got  to  work  out  our  own  sal- 
vation. 

This  new  doctrine  that  you  can  legislate  unsuc- 
cessful men  into  success  by  legislating  successful  men 
out  of  success  is  a  piece  of  imbecility  that  does  in- 
justice to  our  twentieth  century.  The  man  who 
whines  that  he  has  no  chance  because  other  men 
have  got  the  trade  cannot  be  helped  by  law.  There 
will  be  nothing  of  him  that  is  not  in  him,  nor  for  him 
that  he  does  not  do  for  himself. 

The  activities  of  capital  are  the  distribution  of 
the  earth's  resources  and  the  peoples  of  the  earth, 
and  the  practical  adaptation  of  nature's  gifts  and 
man's  powers.  Capital  turns  rocks,  metals,  min- 
erals, grains,  life,  and  the  forces  of  all  kinds  into 
properties  and  distributes  them  to  industrious  men. 
It  brings  forth  for  them  the  inaccessible  treasures  of 
the  earth  and  compels  the  infinite  energies  which 
formed  creation  to  serve  them  as  do  obedient,  docile 
beasts  of  burden.  Poverty  is  Benjamin  Franklin  fly- 
ing a   kite   among  the  clouds  to  catch  a  bottle  of 

33 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

lightning.  The  corporation  is  Niagara  generating 
a  force'  of  electricity  which  drives  the  wheels  of  a 
hundred  cities  and  makes  the  lightnings  to  talk  with 
every  continent  under  the  sun. 

The  measure  of  our  inheritance  and  the  privilege 
of  our  achievements  are  ourselves.  We  should  in- 
sist upon  the  right  of  being  as  big  as  we  can  be, 
of  doing  as  much  as  we  can  do,  of  having  as  much 
as  we  can  get,  provided  we  defraud  no  man.  And 
we  cannot  be  made  good  by  being  stopped  from 
being  what  we  can  be,  or  doing  what  we  can  do,  or 
having  what  we  have  got. 

The  sequestration  of  man's  wealth  by  direct 
confiscation  or  indirectly  by  an  income  tax  is  a  doc- 
trine better  suited  to  the  dark  ages,  only  no  age  ever 
has  been   dark  enough  to  contemplate  it  seriously. 

When  a  new  Cunarder  is  built  we  do  not  begin 
a  protest  and  investigate  because  she  is  too  big  for 
the  channel  of  our  harbor  or  because  she  will  bring  the 
passengers  of  five  great  ships  across  the  seas  and 
make  tramps  of  the  old-time  greyhounds  and  restrain 
their  trade.  We  dig  our  channel  deeper  and  build 
our  docks  longer  and  say.  Come  on !  We  will  dig  as 
deep  water  as  you  can  draw  and  we  will  float  you 
lengthwise  of  the  North  River  before  we  will  sur- 
render to  anything  that  man  can  put  upon  the  ocean ! 

We  had  better  be  digging  our  channels  than  cut- 
ting down  our  enterprises.  We  had  better  a  thou- 
sand times  explore  for  the  greater  uses  of  corporate 
capital  and  ability  than  spend  our  time  in  childish 

34 


NEW    PROPORTIONS 

attempts  to  restrict  their  power  and  privilege.  If 
we  want  to  reduce  "  swollen  fortunes,"  we  had  bet- 
ter look  about  for  new  and  greater  uses  to  which 
to  apply  them  in  opening  ten  thousand  unemployed 
and  unused  resources  of  our  country,  and  in  philan- 
thropy, education,  and  in  promoting  common  thrift, 
than  in  the  socialistic  insanity  of  confiscating  them 
above  a  sum  to  be  set  by  our  Congressmen ! 

We  should  dig  our  channels  deep  for  our  trade, 
our  manufactures,  and  inventions,  and  man  should 
multiply  himself  a  hundredfold  for  the  new  and 
startling  capacity  demanded  by  the  new  age.  It  is 
our  business  to  make  way  for  him,  to  join  forces  with 
him,  and  to  welcome  him  with  all  of  his  powers  of 
brain  and  wealth,  for  he  is  working  out  the  gigantic 
proportions   of  a  new  and  last  civilization. 

It  is  the  utmost  folly  to  suppose  that  men  can 
be  restrained  from  getting  fortunes  or  doing  those 
things  from  which  fortunes  arise  so  long  as  the  God- 
implanted  acquisitiveness  is  deep  in  the  constitution, 
the  nature  of  man.  And  the  size  of  his  enterprises 
will  be  in  proportion  to  the  resources  of  the  earth 
and  the  intelligence  and  activities  of  the  race. 

We  have  only  begun  the  gigantic  corporate  busi- 
ness of  the  world.  Millions  have  taken  the  place 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  as  a  measure  of  wealth. 
Billions  will  displace  millions  before  the  century 
closes.  The  wealth  of  this  country  is  increasing  at 
the  rate  of  $10,000,000  a  day.  Railways  are  so 
overwhelmed  with  the  business  of  this  country  that 

3S 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

wrecks  are  the  current  news  at  every  breakfast  table. 
Where  we  have  two  tracks,  we  must  have  four;  and 
where  four,  ten  will  be  required.  We  are  only  on 
the  edge  of  the  development  of  our  country. 

Our  corporate  forms  of  manufacture  and  com- 
merce are  in  their  infancy.  We  are  making  our- 
selves a  laughingstock  for  coming  generations  by 
our  panic  over  the  magnitude  of  present  enterprises. 

There  is  no  fear  of  the  new  proportions  of 
wealth  if  equally  we  accumulate  manhood.  The 
only  ground  for  fear  would  be  if  the  wealth  of  the 
world  became  greater  than  the  men  of  the  world. 
So  long  as  the  man  is  greater  than  his  fortune  and 
it  is  only  an  instrument  of  his  useful  purpose,  we 
need  have  no  fear. 

The  signs  are  thick  about  us  that  such  is  rapidly 
coming  to  be  the  proportion  between  the  foremost 
commercial  men  of  this  country  and  their  mighty 
enterprises. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE     CITIZEN 

OUR  Nation  began  by  enthroning  the  citizen 
instead  of  the  ruler,  by  making  the  citizen 
the  king.  It  placed  sovereignty  in  the 
people  and  not  in  governors  or  presidents.  It  arose 
out  of  contention  against  arbitrary  authority,  and 
leaped  to  full  strength  battling  for  the  rights  of  the 
people  to  rule  themselves.  When  it  became  neces- 
sary for  the  people  to  place  their  representatives  in 
positions  of  authority  they  designated  them  as  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people,  as  agents  selected  by  the 
people  to  do  the  business  of  the  people,  and  arranged 
a  plan  by  which  they  should  give  frequent  account- 
ing to  those  whom  they  served,  so  that  if  they  were 
not  suitable  persons  for  such  business  others  might 
replace  them.  And  the  people  made  the  tenure  of 
office  so  short  that  those  intrusted  with  it  were  con- 
stantly reminded  that  the  only  right  by  which  they 
enjoyed  its  honors  was  a  choice  which  could  be  with- 
drawn and  which  might  replace  them  with  others. 
The  citizens  always  have  been  greater  than  the 
officeholders,  for  they  create  offices  and  select  office- 
4  37 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

holders,  who  cannot  select  themselves.  The  people 
are  the  President,  the  Governor.  These  are  names 
for  their  will,  their  authority,  and  their  power,  their 
agents.  This  is  a  good  reason  why  they  should  de- 
fend such  offices  and  those  who  occupy  them,  for 
they  are  represented  in  them,  and  their  self-respect 
must  suffer  by  any  degradation  of  the  instruments  of 
their  self-government.  And  this  is  why  men  chosen 
as  representative  rulers  can  never  afford  to  forget 
whom  they  serve. 

That  remark  of  one  of  our  governors  that  "  the 
people  want  a  governor  to  rule  them  "  was  the  op- 
posite of  the  truth.  It  could  be  reversed  and  be 
true.  The  people  should  rule  the  governor.  They 
make  the  laws  and  the  institutions  and  they  determine 
the  person  who  shall  be  called  governor.  And  he 
can  rule  nobody.  He  can  simply  act  for  the  people 
in  carrying  out  their  rulership  and  enforcing  under 
well-defined  limitations  their  laws.  He  has  abso- 
lutely nothing  that  they  have  not  given  him.  And 
any  assertion  of  any  other  authority  is  a  usurpation 
and  an  impertinence.  Even  his  discretion  Is  buoyed, 
an  unmistakable  channel. 

The  citizen  is  supreme.  One  half  and  one  of  the 
citizens  of  the  State  can  control  It  absolutely  by  the 
choice  of  one  of  their  number  to  execute  their  will. 
And  they  have  said  what  number  of  the  whole  shall 
amend  constitutions  or  make  laws.  All  of  the  gov- 
ernors and  judges  and  presidents  and  cabinets  com- 
bined cannot  do  it.     The  people,   however  humble 

38 


THE    CITIZEN 

and  unlearned  and  obscure,  can  do  what  no  persons 
by  virtue  of  any  office  or  position  or  wealth  or  in- 
fluence can  do.  And  if  they  do  not  do  these  things, 
and  prevent  things  which  they  do  not  approve,  it  is 
because  they  are  indifferent  and  unworthy  of  their 
citizenship  or  have  sold  to  the  demagogues  the  birth- 
right of  the  primary  and  the  ballot. 

In  no  country  on  earth  has  so  much  been  secured 
to  the  citizen.  What  he  does  not  have  in  the  State 
he  gave  up  to  secure  greater  things  in  the  Nation. 
Nothing  can  be  taken  away  from  him.  And  there 
is  nothing  that  he  has  surrendered  that  he  cannot 
recall,  nothing  delegated  that  he  cannot  recover  and 
do  himself.  No  one  has  superseded  him.  He  may 
bear  the  proud  consciousness  that  he  is  the  King,  the 
lawmaker,  and  ruler.  And  all  that  he  requires  to 
change  institutions  and  laws  is  the  power  of  reason 
to  persuade  other  citizens  with  equal  rights  to  agree 
with  him  within  the  clearly  defined  processes  of  se- 
curing such  changes. 

We  have  drifted  so  far  away  from  these  simple 
and  primary  facts  of  our  citizenship  that  It  is  neces- 
sary for  our  thought  to  be  turned  to  them. 

We  have  these  rights  and  all  of  their  dignity, 
but  we  have  renounced  them  almost  criminally.  It 
would  be  criminal  were  it  not  that  we  have  felt  our- 
selves so  helpless  to  recover  and  assert  our  rights. 
Adroit  men,  expert  in  leadership,  professional  and 
skilled  citizens  in  such  matters,  control  us — always 
with  the  argument  of  our  inviolate  rights,  and  we 

39 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

find  ourselves  perpetually  blindfolded  and  led  up  to 
the  same  political  corral  and  herded  for  a  hun- 
dredth time  in  the  same  exciting  round-up.  We  fire 
bombs  and  blow  horns  and  clang  bells  ov^er  the  suc- 
cess of  the  demagogues  in  fooling  us  again.  Mak- 
ing our  discovery  too  late,  we  plan  a  reform  to 
justify  ourselves.  Another  politician  quickly  dis- 
covers the  state  of  mind  in  which  we  are  or  in  which 
we  are  not  and  prepares  skillfully  the  issue  and  starts 
out  to  arouse  the  people  to  vindicate  their  rights 
which  they  lost  in  the  last  campaign !  Possibly  he 
is  a  veritable  civil-service  reformer !  That  appeals 
to  us,  for  we  do  not  want  ofl'ice  and  we  want  to  be 
protected  from  the  purchase  price,  the  graft,  and  the 
corruption  of  office.  We  seek  to  take  office  out  of 
mere  party  politics  and  personal  ambition  and  re- 
store it  to  Its  function  In  the  service  of  the  people. 
We  follow  the  leaders  who  promise  It. 

All  of  this  Is  set  forth  for  us  in  burning,  fist- 
clinched  eloquence  and  again  we  are  used  by  a  yet 
more  skillful  demagogue.  Such  experiences  lead  the 
people  to  distrust  themselves  and  the  worst  condi- 
tion of  all  follows.  They  become  indifferent,  and 
thenceforth  the  fight  Is  between  politicians  for  issues 
that  will  arouse  the  people  and  secure  the  most  suc- 
cessful herding  of  them  at  the  polls. 

This  action  and  reaction  goes  on.  There  are 
times  when  the  spirit  of  '76  kindles  Into  an  ascend- 
ing and  mighty  flame  and  the  mere  politicians  go 
scurrying  before  It  like  rabbits  before  a  prairie  fire. 

40 


THE    CITIZEN 

But  it  is  only  a  prairie  fire.  The  wind  shifts.  It  soon 
burns  out,  for  it  cannot  burn  over  the  same  ground  a 
second  time. 

But  there  remains  the  citizenship,  the  Constitu- 
tion that  secures  it,  and  the  liberty  that  is  its  arena. 
They  remain  if  abandoned.  We  can  return  to  them. 
We  can  and  we  cannot.  All  of  the  provisions  are 
intact.  They  need  not  to  be  reenacted.  They  wait 
only  to  be  put  into  operation.  But  how?  That  is 
the  unsolved  problem  in  all  republics  and  constitu- 
tional forms  of  government.  How  can  the  people 
rule  themselves  and  not  be  ruled? 

Can  it  be  done  by  tenure  of  office?  Switzerland  is 
given  as  an  example.  Were  more  emphasis  put  upon 
the  institution  of  government  and  less  upon  the  men 
of  government,  were  the  Constitution  and  the  law 
magnified,  and  the  executive  understoodas  having  no 
authority  by  discretion  but  only  by  the  terms  of  the 
instrument,  and  could  the  people  be  impressed  with 
the  sufficiency  of  a  few  great  laws  and  the  folly  of 
overgoverning  themselves  and  excessive  lawmak- 
ing, it  would  be  a  great  stride  toward  that  ideal  but 
as  yet  unrealized  condition  w^hen  the  land  shall  be 
governed  by  the  people  for  the  people. 

There  would  not  be  enough  in  one  year's  tenure 
without  reelection  to  excite  an  arbitrary  ambition. 
And  there  would  be  no  possibility  of  that  pernicious 
thing,  "  my  policy,"  which  has  wrought  at  different 
times  so  much  mischief  in  this  country.  And  there 
would  not  be  so  much  of  professional  politics  in  it 

41 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

as  to  exclude  the  best  citizens  nor  so  much  of  burden 
as  to  excuse  men  best  suited  to  the  office  by  great 
business  training  and  ability.  The  system  would  be 
the  perpetual  thing.  The  men  would  fit  into  the 
system. 

Another  step  toward  self-government  by  the 
people  would  be  secured  by  taking  thousands  of  ap- 
pointments out  of  the  hands  of  the  President,  espe- 
cially judicial  appointments,  which  never  should  be 
subject  to  the  will  of  any  officer  who  may  have  a 
personal  or  partisan  interest  in  measures  that  come 
before  the  courts.  And  scarcely  less  the  importance 
in  the  case  of  the  thousands  of  appointees  who  can 
be  used  to  influence  the  complexion  of  nominating 
conventions  and  the  results  of  elections. 

By  leaving  such  appointments  to  the  chief  execu- 
tive and  the  advisers  whom  he  may  retain  and  dismiss 
at  will,  the  people  put  away  from  themselves  effec- 
tually their  democratic  form  of  government  and  sub- 
stitute for  it  an  autocracy.  They  permit  a  gigantic 
party  to  be  created  against  them,  for  this  mighty 
host  of  officeholders  ceases  to  be  of  the  people. 
Their  associations,  their  manner  of  life,  their  income 
are  from  altogether  different  sources  and  their  ar- 
rogance in  many  cases  becomes  conspicuous.  De- 
fenseless womanhood  does  not  always  escape  from 
it.  The  humble  and  dependent  are  crushed  by  petty 
martinets. 

But  if  all  such  appointive  positions  were  kept 
close  to  the  people,  reviewed  and  inspected  by  often- 

42 


THE    CITIZEN 

recurring  appointments,  a  tremendously  inciting  cause 
to  autocratic  tyranny  and  control  would  be  removed 
from  the  executive,  and  the  appointees  would  retain 
the  responsibilities  of  citizenship.  We  place  too 
much  in  the  hand  of  one  man  and  we  make  men  who 
serve  us  in  subordinate  positions  too  independent  and 
sufficient  by  the  nature  of  the  offices,  by  making  them 
depend,  instead  of  upon  the  people,  upon  the  pleas- 
ure of  an  appointing  power  which  is  practically  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  people. 

Nothing  is  more  illustrative  of  all  this  than  the 
quadrennial  discussions  of  the  complexion  of  a  great 
convention  by  which  a  presidential  nomination  is  to 
b€  made.  The  man  In  office  has  been  known  to  de- 
feat the  will  of  the  party  in  power,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  people,  by  securing  as  delegates  to  that  conven- 
tion men  holding  office  under  his  administration  or 
such  delegates  as  these  officeholders  could  secure  by 
the  influence  of  their  position. 

When  a  President  declares  that  no  man  will  be 
permitted  to  succeed  him  who  Is  not  in  sympathy  with 
"  his  policy,"  upon  what  does  he  base  this  assump- 
tion but  this  fact,  that  there  is  in  the  field  subject  to 
his  civil-service  influence  thousands  of  men  who  are 
the  servants  of  his  administration  and  of  his  ambi- 
tions. Such  a  position  Is  so  arrogant  and  so  opposed 
to  the  entire  spirit,  as  well  as  to  the  letter  of  de- 
mocracy, that  it  would  be  impossible  except  for  the 
army  of  officeholders  to  whom  the  appeal  may  be 
successfully  made.     The   "  policy  "  of  a  President, 

43 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

so  long  as  we  must  have  It,  is  the  very  thing  the  peo- 
ple should  pass  upon.  A  free  choice  of  the  incum- 
bent or  his  successor  is  the  only  way  that  they  can 
pass  upon  it,  but  they  are  informed  months  before 
the  event  that  they  will  not  be  permitted  to  say 
whether  It  shall  continue  or  not.  The  kind  of  suc- 
cessor has  been  decided.  That  Is  settled  and  no  one 
will  be  permitted  to  succeed  to  the  office  who  is  not 
agreeable  to  the  present  incumbent  and  who  cannot 
be  depended  upon  to  carry  forward  his  good  work, 
whether  the  people  like  it  or  not.  And  the  people 
are  not  to  determine  that  question,  but  it  will  be 
decided  by  their  servant  by  the  use  of  their  other 
servants  in  subordinate  positions  whom  they  fool- 
ishly have  made  subject  to  the  chief  servant's  will 
and  not  to  their  own !  Is  it  wide  of  the  facts  to 
say  that  such  a  democracy  Is  a  farce  and  that  such 
government  is  a  tyranny?  Intense  partisans  will 
evade  the  question  by  pointing  to  the  cruelty  of 
tyrants.  Tyranny  does  not  always  Imply  the  cruelty 
of  the  Neros  and  Diocletians. 

There  is  such  a  definition  of  tyranny  as  "  the 
use  of  arbitrary  power."  Though  political  tyranny 
need  not  Imply  cruelty.  It  is  none  the  less  despotic 
and  its  despotism  is  emphasized  by  the  fact  that  It 
Is  exercised  In  a  Republic.  As  it  only  arbitrarily 
violates  an  instrument,  the  principal  instrument  of 
government,  and  for  the  time  takes  nothing  away 
that  the  people  In  general  want  nor  for  that  matter 
take  pains  to  consider,  It  passes  as  an  eccentricity  or 

44 


THE    CITIZEN 

is  praised  as  a  piece  of  brave  originality.  In  these 
preliminary  stages  such  usurpations  are  fairly  safe 
in  this  country.  We  are  too  much  engrossed  in  our 
business  affairs  to  be  very  close  students  of  govern- 
ment, and  then  our  "  get-there  "  spirit  excuses  much 
to  strenuous  men.  Such  conditions  only  invest  polit- 
ical tyranny  and  usurpation  with  more  danger  to 
the  Republic.     Precedent  becomes  the  unwritten  law. 

The  acts  of  this  kind  attributed  to  Andrew  Jack- 
son are  mischievously  quoted  until  this  present  time. 
The  curse  of  "  To  the  victor  belong  the  spoils  "  is 
still  upon  the  country. 

The  most  serious  thing  about  the  betrayal  of  our 
citizenship  is  in  the  fact  that  it  is  at  a  time  in  the 
history  of  our  country  when  because  of  our  increas- 
ing numbers  and  the  varied  elements  of  socialism  by 
immigration  eternal  vigilance  is  the  only  price  at 
which  we  can  retain  our  liberties.  And  only  a  homo- 
geneous people  will  find  unity  of  thought  and  a 
common  ground  of  patriotism. 

We  are  a  vast  people  spread  over  half  of  an 
inhabitable  hemisphere.  We  are  from  every  clime, 
in  every  state  of  crudeness,  with  every  vagary  born 
under  the  sun.  It  is  possible  for  a  shrewd  leader 
of  men  to  gather  a  formidable  following.  There  Is 
nothing  however  absurd  that  cannot  muster  to  its 
bugle  call  cohorts  ready  to  follow  to  the  death  the 
flag,  black  or  red,  which  it  flings  to  the  breeze. 
These  are  elements  which  if  amalgamated  and  assim- 
ilated will  contribute  great  fiber  to  the  Nation,  but  If 

45 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

let  run  wild  or  left  to  the  spoilsman  and  self-seeking 
demagogue  will  gather  force  and  fury  which  will 
require  armies  to  stay  them.  The  obligations  of 
citizenship  become  a  consecration  in  the  face  of  the 
dissimilar  and  fiercely  antagonistic  elements  meeting 
but  not  coalescing  on  our  shores. 

A  similar  condition  came  down  upon  a  Nation 
once  and  overwhelmed  it.  That  Nation  took  up  one 
of  those  secret  foes  and  reared  him  from  childhood 
to  lead  his  kinsmen  to  the  overthrow  of  that  nation. 
It  had  not  a  force  of  citizenship  strong  enough  to 
oppose  to  the  Incoming  hordes  and  direct  them  and 
assimilate  them. 

Our  country's  safety  is  in  the  strength  of  an 
Americanized  citizenship — native-born,  or  alien  nat- 
uralized and  assimilated.  It  must  remain  In  the 
ascendency.  The  protection  and  preservation  of  our 
sacred  citizenship  is  In  those  who  have  inherited  it, 
who  know  what  It  Is  in  its  purity,  who  have  the 
blood  in  their  veins  that  was  consecrated  to  it,  who 
have  scars  from  whence  flowed  blood  for  it;  men 
who  were  actually  on  San  Juan  Hill  and  caused  it  to 
tremble  beneath  their  mighty  march  of  victory,  men 
who  were  In  scores  of  battles  of  our  great  Civil  War, 
loyal  on  both  sides  to  a  high  ideal  of  citizen- 
ship, united  now  In  one  citizenship. 

Here  Is  where  we  are  to  look  for  the  holy  war 
of  citizen  rights  and  not  to  men  who  never  had 
a  country  and  to  whom  all  government  Is  tyranny 
and  all  law  oppression. 

46 


THE    CITIZEN 

Were  the  conditions  simply  economic,  a  matter 
of  irrigation  and  commerce,  it  were  something  un- 
usual as  contrasted  with  past  ages.  But  it  is  the 
government  itself  as  a  stake  which  the  politicians 
are  putting  up.  The  yellow  journals  are  selling 
pools  on  the  future  of  this  land  of  liberty.  It 
is  a  weak  answer  of  the  partisan  to  cry  "  pessimism." 
Count  the  ships  as  they  come  in,  not  from  the  in- 
telligent shores  of  England,  Germany,  Ireland, 
Scotland,  and  Sweden,  but  many  of  them  from  lands 
of  oppression,  freighted  with  the  malcontents  and 
anarchists  of  some  of  the  great  countries  of  Europe, 
glad  to  be  rid  of  them  on  any  shores.  To  such  dis- 
integrating forces  must  be  opposed  the  best  manhood 
and  womanhood  of  the  land. 

They  must  not  bring  in  their  citizenship.  They 
must  take  ours.  They  must  not  be  permitted  to 
break  down  and  override  the  institutions  of  which 
they  are  ignorant.  They  must  not  fall  into  the 
hands  of  professional  politicians  to  be  used  by  them 
at  the  price  of  our  liberties. 

They  are  to  be  valuable  to  us  chiefly  and  solely 
for  that  matter  by  their  citizenship.  They  will  have 
a  place  of  economic  value  in  constructing  and  repair- 
ing our  railways,  irrigating  our  arid  lands,  opening 
our  mines,  and  harvesting  our  enormous  products. 
But  in  all  of  this  they  are  machines  constantly  being 
displaced  by  inventions. 

What  we  want  most  in  them  is  intelligent  loyalty, 
the  power  to  think  things  to  be  done  as  well  as  to 

47 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

do  things  with  the  work  of  the  hand.  We  are  in 
more  need  of  men  than  we  are  of  animals.  Our 
problem  therefore,  with  the  millions  increasing  the 
volumes  of  our  census  from  foreign  shores,  is  how 
to  citizen  them.  That  is  accomplished  only  by  being 
that  which  they  never  have  hitherto  seen,  freeborn 
citizens  carrying  as  a  profound  responsibility  the 
duties  and  privileges  of  self-government,  a  govern- 
ment by  the  man  for  whom  it  is  made. 

But  the  man  coming  to  our  shores  is  usually  met 
at  the  ship's  gangway  by  a  politician  with  a  lugubri- 
ous story  of  the  wickedness  of  the  party  in  power 
and  of  the  rascality  of  those  officeseekers  who  wish 
to  get  into  power.  So  from  him  he  receives  the  im- 
pression that  he  has  come  to  a  land  worse  than  the 
one  he  left,  though  that  was  hopeless. 

There  is  a  suggestion  worth  noting  in  the  state- 
ment of  Pat  as  he  came  off  the  ship  with  his  little 
bundle  on  his  shoulder  and  his  short-stemmed  pipe 
in  his  mouth.  He  was  asked  what  party  he  would 
join  and  he  answered:  "  Be  golly,  I  don't  know.  I 
am  agin  the  government !  "  It  does  not  matter 
much  what  the  government  is,  people  to  whom  gov- 
ernment has  meant  oppression  are  against  all  forms 
of  government. 

It  is  ours  to  show  the  ways  of  liberty,  the  jus- 
tice of  a  Constitution,  the  fairness  of  laws  made  by 
the  people  for  all  the  people,  the  responsibility  for 
intelligence,  the  opportunities  secured  to  all  men  by 
just  administration.     The  American  people  must  be 

48 


THE    CITIZEN 

an  object  lesson  to  all  peoples  coming  to  our  shores 
and  the  first  thing  must  be  not  partisanship  but  citi- 
zenship. 

A  profound  sense  of  responsibility  to  one's  coun- 
try, the  calm  patriotism,  the  quiet,  practical,  daily 
loyalty  to  our  liberties  Is  incumbent  upon  everyone 
who  lives,  a  sharer  of  the  blessings  of  our  freedom. 

The  citizenship  is  not  delegated.  It  cannot  be. 
And  it  cannot  be  retained  in  Ignorance  of  primal 
facts  or  with  indifference  to  the  acts  of  those  who 
make  or  enforce  laws. 

Our  peril  is  not  on  the  Atlantic  or  the  Pacific. 
There  is  no  "  yellow  peril."  The  foe  that  threatens 
America  to-day  is  that  archenemy,  indifference  to  our 
citizenship,  by  which  It  is  handed  over  to  men  who 
make  a  profession  of  keeping  It  for  us  and  of  mend- 
ing it  at  will  In  our  absence.  In  our,  country  an 
enormous  bulk  of  laws  are  made  annually  and  a 
casual  observer  would  receive  the  Impression  that  the 
people  are  In  earnest  about  affairs  of  government. 

We  are  informed  by  a  municipal  club  interested 
in  noting  the  process  of  lawmaking,  that  over  twenty- 
five  hundred  laws  were  introduced  In  the  last  New 
York  Legislature.  One  fifth  of  them  had  received 
executive  approval.  As  many  more  were  waiting 
the  Governor's  decision. 

The  last  Congress  passed  almost  four  thousand 
bills.  The  total  for  Congress  and  a  third  of  the 
States  examined  amounted  to  nearly  if  not  quite 
twenty   thousand  new   laws,    and  the    fever  of   this 

49 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

craze  for  making  laws  gathers  strength  and  the 
craze  increases. 

But  this  must  not  be  supposed  to  indicate  a 
popular  interest.  The  people  have  little  to  do  with 
it.  They  groan  under  the  burden  and  the  bewil- 
derment. Laws  are  originated  by  representatives 
who  must  "  make  good  "  with  their  constituents  by 
showing  an  ample  record  in  Congress  and  the  Leg- 
islature. Many  young  lawyers  are  sent  to  these 
halls.  And  the  younger  the  lawyer  the  more  laws 
he  will  discover  for  us. 

It  were  a  happy  state  of  things  if  the  peo- 
ple in  general  were  so  universally  interested  in  the 
State  as  to  prescribe  these  statutes  even  if  not  one 
in  a  hundred  were  constitutional  or  practicable.  A 
thousand  times  better  such  popular  results  than  the 
indifference  of  a  dead  patriotism,  than  unquestioning 
servility  to  the  doings  of  men  who  hold  office  as  a 
trade  or  calling  and  who  vindicate  their  pretensions 
by  useless  statutes,  most  of  which  pass  through  by 
bargains  between  demagogues. 

We  never  shall  have  seriousness  of  citizenship 
until  the  people  maintain  it.  The  feeling  of  citizen- 
ship is  essential  to  its  vitality.  The  proud  conscious- 
ness of  it,  the  jealousy  of  it,  this  gives  it  force.  Too 
many  thousands  hold  their  citizenship  as  we  hold 
voting  membership  in  a  mutual  life-insurance  com- 
pany where  we  vote  by  proxy.  Our  laws  are  en- 
acted and  compiled  for  us.  Not  one  in  a  thousand 
men  of  the  country  ever  reads  the  laws  passed  by 

50 


THE    CITIZEN 

a  Legislature  and  published  in  his  paper.  We  liv^e 
by  "  the  common  law  "  and  we  use  less  than  fifty  of 
them.  We  are  so  ignorant  of  these  twenty  thousand 
new  laws  of  the  past  year  that  we  are  surprised  when 
we  accidentally  and  unwittingly  violate  one  of  them. 

As  a  matter  of  self-preservation  the  people  soon 
will  have  to  utter  a  protest  against  too  much  law- 
making. They  will  be  obliged  to  select  their  repre- 
sentatives upon  the  issue  of  doing  nothing  or  doing 
only  such  things  as  the  people  in  convention  may 
require  to  have  done. 

He  will  be  a  great  friend  of  the  citizens  of  this 
country  who  shall  find  a  way  of  making  legislation 
unnecessary,  of  reducing  it  to  the  minimum,  who 
will  appreciate  the  simplicity  of  freedom  and  secure 
to  the  people  the  most  unobstructed  avenues  of  in- 
telligent activity  for  the  country's  good., 


CHAPTER    IV 

RIGHTS    OF    SPEECH 

ONE  of  the  highest  privileges  of  an  American 
citizen  is  the  discussion  of  the  affairs  of 
his  land  and  country  in  an  orderly  and  ra- 
tional manner.  If  he  is  worthy  of  this  privilege  he 
will  speak  reverently  of  the  institutions  of  the  coun- 
try which  are  fundamental  to  liberty  and  progress, 
and  of  the  high  officials  who  are  appointed  by  him 
and  his  fellow  citizens  to  protect  the  laws  and 
to  enforce  them  and  to  represent  the  country  in  its 
relation  to  other  nations.  If  he  must  take  issue  with 
acts  upon  their  part  that  he  believes  to  be  threaten- 
ing to  the  present  and  future  stability  of  the  country, 
invading  personal  liberty  and  mischievous  to  the 
commercial  interests  of  the  people,  he  will  do  so 
with  regard  to  all  such  matters  as  principles  and 
acts,  and  will  be  incapable  of  epithets,  personal  as- 
sault, and  inflammatory  language. 

No  man  can  claim  justly  or  successfully  the  at- 
tention of  the  people  who  is  hostile  to  the  institu- 
tions of  his  country  or  who  attacks  with  anarchistic 
purpose  the  chief  executive  of  State  or  Nation,  the 
courts  or  the  legislators. 

52 


RIGHTS    OF    SPEECH 

It  will  be  many  long  years  before  this  Republic 
forgets  that  the  assassin's  brain  was  inflamed  and  his 
pistol  aimed  at  one  of  the  noblest  of  our  Presidents 
by  the  reckless  writing  of  the  editor  of  a  yellow 
journal.  It  will  be  written  into  history  that  William 
McKinley  was  slain  in  a  manner  that  fulfilled  to  the 
letter  the  demands  of  that  yellow-journal  writer,  and 
the  incendiary  will  talce  his  place  in  that  awful 
tragedy  in  a  frightful  responsibility  with  the  man 
who  fired  the  murderer's  bullet.  If  he  did  not  act  as 
an  accomplice  before  the  fact,  he  put  forth  sentiments 
and  uttered  language  that  found  the  most  complete 
counterpart  in  the  crazed  brain  of  the  assassin.  And 
any  man  who  helps  to  make  a  condition  of  sentiment 
and  feeling  against  the  head  of  a  nation  or  the  judge 
of  a  court  which  calls  for  any  violent  actions  or 
that  has  any  logical  issue  in  anything  but  the  estab- 
lished processes  of  correction  by  constitutional  and 
lawful  order  is  an  enemy  of  the  country,  and  it 
is  a  pity  that  there  is  not  some  way  of  reaching 
him  with  a  law  as  direct  and  effective  as  Lese 
Majeste. 

We  have  to  remember  as  good  citizens  that  we 
are  giving  shelter  to  thousands  of  men  to  whom  all 
government  has  been  another  name  for  oppression 
and  these  men  make  a  virtue  of  violent  removal  of 
rulers.  They  mistake  the  yellow  cartoon  and  coarse, 
low  editorial  for  the  general  sentiment  of  the  land. 
They  expect  to  be  applauded  by  a  party  with  all 
of  the  conditions  of  successful  revolution  in  hand. 
6  53 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

Nothing  is  more  logical  to  them  than  the  assassin's 
weapon. 

Therefore  the  man  who  discusses  any  policy  of 
the  Republic  which  he  would  urge  upon  his  fellow 
citizens  and  who  criticises  an  administration  must 
keep  the  emphasis  constantly  upon  the  impersonal 
feature  of  the  discussion  as  far  as  possible  and  upon 
the  constitutional  relief  in  such  cases  by  a  sacred 
franchise. 

Ours  is  a  country  where  remedies  are  wrought 
not  by  an  assault  upon  one  man  but  by  persuasion  of 
a  majority  of  the  people.  Nothing  is  ever  accom- 
plished in  this  country  by  removing  with  violence  a 
man  who  is  the  choice  of  the  majority.  It  is  the 
majority  that  we  must  remove  by  solid  and  unan- 
swerable argument.  The  majority  must  rule  in  this 
country  so  long  as  we  remain  a  Republic.  Those 
newspaper  attacks  which  called  for  the  death  of  a 
President  and  secured  it  in  the  assassination  of  the 
great  McKinley,  as  well  as  all  violent  methods  of 
anarchism,  are  treason  against  the  government. 

But  while  all  men  who  discuss  our  country's  af- 
fairs must  be  careful  to  do  so  within  constitutional 
limits  and  in  language  which  a  crazy  anarchist  can- 
not misconstrue,  the  privilege  of  such  discussion  is 
undoubted.  Our  foundations  were  laid  in  discus- 
sion. Public  opinion,  which  is  the  final  court,  makes 
up  its  verdict  by  discussion.  The  surest  and  shortest 
road  to  tyranny  is  by  the  interdiction  of  free  speech. 
It  were  better  to  take  large  chances  with  fanaticism 

54 


RIGHTS    OF    SPEECH 

and  anarchism  than  to  close  the  minds  and  voices 
of  our  citizens  to  the  fullest  and  freest  discussion  of 
all  National  and  State  questions  and  all  executive 
actions. 

There  can  be  no  vote  if  there  Is  no  voice.  The 
one  implies  the  other.  Voting  is  a  blind  act  if  it  is 
only  a  dumb  privilege.  We  are  not  talked  to  nor 
talked  for  simply  in  this  country.  We  all  have  the 
reserved  right  of  talking  back.  And  the  partisan 
impatience  that  will  not  listen  is  the  least  intelligent 
and  least  loyal  form  of  American  citizenship.  It 
is  condemned  by  its  insistent  servitude  of  an  unques- 
tioning following.  Its  principles  and  practices  will 
not  bear  to  be  discussed.  The  affairs  of  a  Republic 
should  be  discussed  much  by  the  plain  people  and 
frequently  with  them  is  the  soundest  wisdom  and 
truest  loyalty. 

The  old  days  when  the  state  of  the  country  was 
the  constant  topic  of  conversation,  the  rural  argu- 
ments of  country  village  groceries,  the  stump  speech 
and  the  impromptu  debates  of  the  field  and  the  road- 
side, were  the  days  when  American  greatness  was 
being  created  by  American  patriots  and  first  citizens. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  our  Constitution  was 
wrought  out  of  the  forges  of  the  men  who  met  in 
Philadelphia  and  wrought  at  the  anvils  of  gigantic 
argument  and  tempered  their  steel  with  diplomatic 
compromises.  The  whole  people  from  the  Province 
of  Maine  to  the  Carolinas  were  one  mighty  assem- 
blage of  thoughtful,  earnest,  patriotic  disputants,  as 

SS 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

was  plainly  shown  when  the  instrument  was  finally 
submitted  for  adoption  by  the  States.  The  injunc- 
tion of  secrecy  could  not  withdraw  the  subject  nor 
silence  the  universal  voice  nor  prevent  a  most  in- 
tense popular  interest  in  a  question  which  penetrated 
every  part  of  the  land  even  in  those  times  of  slow 
communication  and  widely  separated  communities. 
Had  it  not  been  so,  what  good  of  those  laborious 
weeks  of  the  statesmen?  The  people  must  pass 
upon  that  work.  Not  an  article  could  be  made  ef- 
fective until  the  men  of  the  plow  and  the  shop 
consented.  And  their  consent  was  formulated  in  the 
forum  of  their  daily  toil  and  in  groups  where  they 
congregated  after  the  day's  labor  was  over.  In  the 
best  days  of  our  political  life  the  people  have  used 
their  voices  freely  and  fearlessly. 

It  is  not  only  a  privilege  for  men  to  speak  upon 
public  matters,  it  is  a  duty.  Nothing  could  be  more 
dangerous  than  an  indifferent  acquiescence  in  exist- 
ing conditions.  Nothing  would  leave  the  road  open 
more  invitingly  to  oligarchy.  The  safety  of  the 
Republic  is  in  the  fact  that  every  act  of  legislation, 
every  act  of  the  executive  is  sure  to  be  reviewed  in 
a  white  light  by  unselfish  and  fearless  discussion. 
He  is  not  worthy  to  live  under  good  laws  who  does 
not  defend  them  intelligently,  and  he  merits  the  op- 
pression and  discomfort  of  bad  laws  who  hides 
away  from  the  responsibility  of  resisting  and  con- 
demning them.  In  a  Republic  the  voters  must  be 
practical  students  of  its  affairs  and  discuss  them.     It 

56 


RIGHTS    OF    SPEECH 

is  not  enough  to  consent  that  self-seeking  profes- 
sional pohticians  go  up  to  halls  of  legislation  and 
act  by  proxy  for  the  citizen.  The  voter  should  fol- 
low him  there  with  clear  observation  and  question 
him  upon  his  return  as  an  agent  in  making  the  laws 
of  the  land.  It  is  the  representative  who  discovers 
that  his  constituents  have  their  eyes  upon  him  and 
their  mouths  full  of  questions  who  is  careful  to  give 
account  of  a  good  stewardship. 

Our  shame  is  that  as  the  real  rulers  of  the  land 
we  have  left  these  matters  to  those  who  assumed  to 
be  the  authority  in  statecraft  and  who  have  reached 
a  degree  of  arrogance  which  resents  any  protest  as 
party  disloyalty  and  brands  it  with  opprobrium,  who 
even  sometimes  treat  a  hearing  with  insolence. 

The  citizen  as  other  than  a  part  of  a  machine 
is  being  eliminated.  He  has  eliminated  himself  and 
one  of  his  most  sacred  rights  is  being  disputed.  He 
cannot  afford  to  renounce  the  right  of  personal  de- 
bate. To  look  upon  it  as  less  than  a  duty  is  dis- 
loyalty. 

But  if  a  man  flatters  himself  that  he  can  speak 
freely  within  the  law  and  in  terms  of  loyal  devotion 
to  his  country  because  he  is  a  citizen  of  a  free  Re- 
public, he  will  have  a  rude  awakening.  Human  na- 
ture is  not  regenerated  by  political  doctrines.  Its 
tendency  is  intolerance  and  it  receives  opposing 
teachings  and  criticisms  in  an  inimical  spirit. 

It  will  be  a  startling  revelation  to  the  man  who 
presumes  to  raise  an  issue  that  in  the  freest  land  on 

57 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

earth  there  are  those  who  will  treat  with  violence  any 
utterances  with  which  they  disagree.  To  them  the 
answer  is  wickedness,  sinister  motives,  ignorance,  or 
weakness.  A  right  which  is  treated  theoretically  as 
Inherent  in  our  form  of  government  is  resisted  by  a 
certain  type  of  minds  as  an  unpardonable  offense. 
The  forum  of  private  discussion  is  overgrown  with 
the  noxious  and  destructive  creeping  vines  of  a  sub- 
servient sycophancy.  Any  attempt  to  enter  it  and  to 
restore  it  to  its  former  place  in  the  political  discus- 
sions of  the  times  is  resented  as  the  invasion  of 
vested  rights,  a  piece  of  insolent  assumption.  State- 
ments are  not  met  with  argument.  Reason  is  clam- 
ored down  by  angry  partisan  resentment. 

The  editor  of  Harper's  Weekly,  in  a  recent  ad- 
dress, ventured  to  arraign  in  fearless,  strong  terms 
present  tendencies.  The  collection  of  replies  which 
he  received  presented  a  curious  anachronism.  They 
were  musty  with  middle-age  intolerance.  The  mer- 
its of  the  question  were  not  touched.  The  feebleness 
and  helplessness  of  slurring  resentment  was  a  strong 
exhibit  of  the  degeneracy  that  has  come  upon  the 
country  from  the  days  of  our  fathers  through  servi- 
tude to  party  interests. 

A  protest  Is  a  violent  shock  to  the  complacent 
partisan  mind.  It  is  a  startling  revelation  of  how 
little  we  differ  in  the  attributes  of  human  nature 
from  that  which  we  condemn  in  other  times.  It  Is 
the  old  story  of  the  Intolerance  of  those  who  profess 
and  claim  tolerance. 

58 


RIGHTS    OF    SPEECH 

But  nothing  could  be  more  inconsistent  and 
strangely  defiant  of  our  rights  as  free  citizens  than 
this  arrogant  denial  of  the  privilege  of  free  speech 
or  impatience  with  protest.  It  is  so  entirely  at 
variance  with  every  principle  which  we  profess  in 
this  country  and  has  come  about  so  insidiously  that 
the  change  is  quite  likely  to  be  disputed.  There  are 
ways  of  disputing  the  right  in  other  than  arbitrary 
terms.  The  clearest  evidence  of  an  unfriendly  at- 
titude toward  private  discussion  is  the  reception 
given  to  anything  not  strictly  partisan,  that  has  not 
the  approval  of  the  local  caucus,  the  members  of 
which  require  no  badge  to  designate  their  assumed 
office.  The  independent  man  becomes  a  marked 
man.  He  is  branded  as  a  crank.  He  is  remembered 
as  unsafe  from  a  party  standpoint.  The  wisdom  of 
Solomon  would  not  be  welcomed  from  any  other 
than  party  sources.  The  criticism  of  the  recording 
angel  would  be  voted  down  in  caucus.  The  partisan 
press  will  discredit  anything,  however  indisputable 
its  facts  and  logic,  that  can  be  turned  against  the 
party.  And  as  free  discussion  of  principles,  stat- 
utes, policies  so-called,  must  range  afield,  and  as 
their  merits  will  inevitably  not  coincide  with  any 
party  unless  omniscient  wisdom  has  been  covered  by 
party  organization  and  declaration,  the  independent 
is  sure  to  be  odious  and  to  be  made  to  feel  so  if 
possible. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  few  men  will 
contend  for  personal  discussion  or  take  the  odium 

59 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

of  it,  especially  as  the  adjuncts  in  the  case  of  equip- 
ment are  not  a  perfect  gift  to  all  men. 

It  were  a  happy  thing  for  the  land  if  there  were 
more  independents,  more  men  with  thorough  fur- 
nishing upon  civic  questions  and  with  facility  of  ut- 
terance. 

It  prohably  will  be  said  also  that  the  engrossing 
contention  of  affairs  of  business,  the  struggle  to  keep 
a  foothold  on  the  earth  is  chargeable  with  the  almost 
universal  silence  of  the  people  upon  questions  of 
state.  But  this  Is  not  an  answer.  It  is  more  likely 
to  be  an  engrossing  self-interest  or  a  politic  timidity. 
Many  men,  for  such  reasons,  refuse  to  touch  any  pub- 
lic question  upon  which  there  Is  a  decided  division  be- 
cause of  a  fear  of  business  loss  or  of  losing  popularity 
in  the  community. 

A  passenger  waiting  on  a  railway  platform  saw 
up  the  track  a  car  jutting  over  on  the  main  rails  from 
a  siding  just  far  enough  to  obstruct  the  passenger 
train  then  due.  He  hesitated  to  speak  because  the 
station  master  and  his  assistant  must  know  about  It 
and  he  might  be  rebuked  for  meddling.  Too  many 
men  in  this  time  seem  to  feel  that  they  would 
meddle  if  they  protested  about  matters  given 
over  exclusively  to  professional  politicians.  They 
are  quite  sure  that  they  are  jutting  over  upon 
the  main  line  of  the  Constitution  and  the  law 
but  these  are  great  questions.  It  may  be  better 
not  to  meddle.  There  are  various  views  of  these 
things. 

60 


RIGHTS    OF    SPEECH 

That  personal  discussion  is  inherent  in  man  and 
the  universal  mind  must  find  expression  somehow  is 
shown  in  the  fact  that  periodically  it  swarms  to 
some  thought  or  doctrine  however  absurd  and  spends 
itself  in  a  vehement  protest,  not  so  much  because  it 
believes  what  it  advocates  as  that  it  disbelieves  every- 
thing that  has  ignored  it  and  which  It  has  not  had 
a  part  in  creating. 

A  Republic  should  encourage  the  protesting 
talker.  Nonprofessional  debate  should  be  culti- 
vated. Reason  and  not  ridicule  should  reply.  Ridi- 
cule often  covers  the  ignorance  of  him  who  indulges 
in  it.  It  is  an  easy  way  out  of  an  embarrassment. 
But  the  philosopher  of  political  economics,  the 
statesman,  will  appreciate  the  supreme  fact  that  in  a 
government  by  the  people  the  people  should  be 
heard,  and  people  answer  to  people. 

For  the  perpetuity  of  a  Republic  and  a  free  citi- 
zenship there  must  be  always  a  solid  substratum,  a 
foundation  layer  of  free  speech.  The  pulpit,  the 
political  forum  for  personal  discussion  must  have  a 
permanent  place  and  speak  faithfully  and  uncom- 
promisingly the  truth  as  they  see  it. 

The  curse  of  this  land  has  been  and  is  the  tim- 
idity with  which  thousands  of  men  of  power  and 
influence  face  great  moral  and  political  issues.  The 
compromise  they  make  with  vice,  with  intemperance, 
with  labor  abuses,  in  fear  of  loss  of  trade,  of  social 
prestige,  and  of  awakening  unpleasant  antagonism  is 
destructive  to  manhood  and  has  encouraged  and  pro- 

6i 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

moted  these  evils  until  they  stalk  through  the  land 
in  defiant  insolence. 

The  sleeping  disease  is  alarmingly  prevalent. 
It  was  when  men  slept  that  tares  were  sown. 

Every  form  of  vice  presumes  upon  the  indif- 
ference of  those  not  immediately  disturbed  and  the 
presumption  is  safe.  Silence  is  particeps  criminis. 
We  are  having  conditions  that  put  to  shame  a  twen- 
tieth-century civilization  because  men  whisper  when 
they  condemn  evil.  They  put  their  preaching  into 
beautiful  rhetoric  and  sing  their  faith  in  sweet 
poetry.  They  are  not  prophets  who  prophesy  until 
God  breaks  the  rocks  in  pieces. 

In  Elba,  among  the  mountains  of  the  Adiron- 
dacks,  is  a  mighty  bowlder  that  the  Almighty  sent 
there  by  the  glacial  drift  for  an  imperishable  monu- 
ment to  the  courage  of  the  honest  convictions  of  a 
plain  man  of  plain  speech.  Whatever  may  be  the 
opinions  of  men  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  acts  commem- 
orated In  connection  with  them,  they  revere  that  man 
for  his  courage  and  the  consecration  of  his  life  to  an 
unselfish  purpose.  The  times  of  John  Brown  did  not 
confer  with  flesh  and  blood.  The  men  who  did 
passed  as  the  dust  Is  blown  by  summer  winds.  The 
men  who  did  not  counsel  with  a  tampering  prudence 
but  took  obloquy  from  their  neighbors  and  friends 
lie  in  graves  that  are  shrines  to  which  thousands 
make  their  annual  pilgrimages. 

One  day  a  man  reared  among  these  mountains 
said  to  me:  "I  was  requested  to  join  John  Brown's 

62 


RIGHTS    OF    SPEECH 

raiders  and  go  to  Harper's  Ferry  but  I  asked,  '  What 
will  you  be  doing  when  you  get  there  ?  '  and  when  they 
said  they  didn't  know,  I  told  them  that  I  didn't  go 
anywhere  where  I  didn't  know  what  they  would  do 
when  they  got  there !  "  He  will  have  a  grave  some 
day  and  it  will  be  like  the  millions  of  other  graves 
— a  generation  and  no  one  will  look  at  it.  He  will 
have  lived  a  life  which  he  saved  and  lost.  Over  by 
the  bowlder  is  the  dust  of  men  who  lost  lives  which 
they  saved,  and  the  ceaseless  generations  will  feel 
the  power  of  their  fearless  souls  that  go  marching 
on.  It  is  dangerous  to  deny  the  right  of  speech  to 
honest,  patriotic  men  even  though  it  be  prema- 
ture and  mistaken  in  the  judgment  of  human 
prudence. 

The  prudent,  careful,  judicious,  self-preserved 
men  are  like  pebbles  rolled  around  on  tbe  beach  by 
ceaseless  coming  and  going  tides.  The  world  wants 
men  who  are  jetties  of  granite  pushed  into  the  sea 
to  channel  its  harbors  and  its  commerce  and  define 
its  morals,  men  who  "  count  not  their  lives  dear  unto 
themselves."  They  are  made  sometimes  by  war  and 
sometimes  by  great  exciting  moral  issues.  And  some 
are  worn  smooth  by  the  tides  of  thought  which  they 
do  not  resist,  controlled  by  men  of  fiercer  will  and 
strenuous  action. 

What  shall  be  the  making  of  our  young  men 
of  easy-going  temperament  if  the  general  senti- 
ment of  loyalty  does  not  awaken  them  to  an  earnest 
discussion   of  their  country  and  a  oatriotlc  defense 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

of  the  Constitution  and  the  Institutions  which  they 
have  inherited  from  sturdy  men  of  sturdy  times? 

Let  those  men  who  gnash  their  teeth  and  surge 
against  the  chains  that  hold  their  tempers  in  leash 
remember  that  they  are  not  of  America.  The  man 
who  understands  the  first  principles  of  a  Republic 
will  welcome  every  voice  that  is  evidently  loyal  and 
devoted  to  the  public  good.  He  will  suppress  noth- 
ing that  is  forced  out  of  honest  convictions  and  high 
purpose. 

The  wisdom  he  will  question,  since  no  man  is  in- 
fallible. The  wisdom  he  will  question  with  wisdom, 
however,  and  not  with  folly  of  passion  or  partisan 
hate.  To  the  man  whose  voice  he  opposes  he  will 
accord  the  privilege  which  he  assumes  for  himself, 
that  the  freest  interchange  may  be  obtained  in  a  land 
where  every  man  is  an  integral  part  of  the  ruling 
power. 

But  any  man  with  a  just  and  valid  claim  upon 
citizenship  will  never  be  deterred  by  the  reception 
which  his  convictions  receive  by  intolerant  minds. 
He  will  ask  two  questions  only:  Are  they  true? 
Ought  they  to  be  said? 

In  the  present  conditions,  more  alarming  than  the 
Civil  War,  more  threatening  than  any  political  fal- 
lacy that  ever  has  agitated  the  country,  the  encour- 
agement is  in  the  signs  of  an  awakening  discussion 
among  the  people  at  large.  What  was  thought  to 
concern  the  millionaires  and  the  great  corporations 
only,  with  whom  through  ignorant  prejudice  there 

64 


RIGHTS    OF    SPEECH 

was  little  sympathy,  is  now  seen  to  have  a  vital  re- 
lation to  all  forms  of  trade  and  investment  and  to 
follow  the  citizen  into  the  courts  of  justice,  where  any 
day  his  liberties  in  some  form  may  be  called  in  ques- 
tion. 

What  he  has  left  unquestioned  and  beyond  his 
practical  thought  as  fixed  principles,  concerning  him- 
self with  them  no  more  than  with  the  stars  or  the 
tides,  he  is  slowly  but  surely  coming  to  see  profaned 
for  political  uses,  and  made  by  processes  of  con- 
stitutional stretching  and  extension  to  cover  all  sorts 
of  civic  vagaries. 

That  he  will  not  blindly  submit  to  the  quarry- 
ing of  the  very  foundation  stones  of  the  Republic 
for  the  purposes  of  this  new  and  bizarre  structure 
of  political  economy  is  as  certain  as  his  intelligence 
and  his  loyalty.  The  plain  citizen  has  not  ab- 
dicated. He  has  been  careless.  He  has  been  mes- 
merized into  a  strange  infatuation  that  magnifies  a 
man  above  law  and  Constitution  and  the  institutions 
of  clearly  defined  government,  but  he  will  awake  and 
he  will  speak. 

That  is  an  old  fallacy  that  "  the  voice  of  the 
people  is  the  voice  of  God."  Quite  as  often  the 
voice  of  God  has  opposed  the  voice  of  the  people. 
It  has  happened  sometimes  that  the  voice  of  the  peo- 
ple has  been  a  voice  of  bondage,  a  voice  of  drunken- 
ness, and  a  voice  of  cowardly  prudence.  It  has  been 
a  voice  of  selfishness  and  not  of  God  in  righteous- 
ness.     Speech    Is   more   likely   to   be   the  speech   of 

65 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

freedom  and  of  reason  when  it  speaks  alone  than 
when  it  is  an  echo  rebounding  with  the  popular  ac- 
claim, because  there  is  nothing  more  certain  than  the 
perverting  influence  of  the  traditions  of  men.  There 
are  political  parties,  as  there  are  religious  organiza- 
tions, which  bear  ancient  and  honorable  names  but 
which  have  no  other  resemblance  to  the  mighty 
thought  which  framed  them  and  gave  them  their  eflli- 
cient  power  for  generations  before  they  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Philistines,  It,  therefore,  is  not  a  sure 
sign  that  he  is  right  because  he  agrees  with  the 
multitudes  or  wrong  because  he  differs  from  them. 
Even  mathematics  are  a  growth  and  a  development. 
They  would  be  opposed  if  there  was  any  competi- 
tion in  them.  The  mind  must  hold  itself  open  and 
the  tongue  must  give  a  reason  for  the  hope  within. 

Sometimes  it  requires  the  courage  of  faith.  It 
is  not  difficult  to  shout  a  victory  which  other  men 
have  won.  It  is  a  test  when  one  hears  the  victory 
of  his  cause  within  himself  and  commits  himself  to 
it,  sure  that  what  he  sees  alone  will  be  seen  by  others 
in  times  to  come. 

There  must  be  much  seeding  of  speech.  It  often 
must  be  cast  out  to  take  slow  root  and  tarry  long 
with  small  promise  before  it  bears  fruit.  There  is 
no  lack  of  men  to  shout  with  the  crowd.  There  is 
great  lack  of  men  who  will  stand  alone  and  sacri- 
fice to  a  principle  with  greater  joy  than  they  receive 
even  just  applause.  The  greatest  and  most  intensely 
satisfactory  applause  is  sound  principles  firmly  vin- 

66 


RIGHTS    OF    SPEECH 

dlcated  and  fearlessly  defended.  Nothing  so  im- 
poverishes manhood  as  the  exchange  of  such  prin- 
ciples for  the  pottage  of  sycophantic  approval  or  the 
barter  of  preferment. 

The  fearless,  reverent  position  taken  for  truth 
Is  sure  to  be  vindicated,  and,  If  It  were  not,  there  Is 
something  Infinitely  more  Important — the  truth  is 
vindicated. 

There  should  be  no  deterrent  in  impugned  mo- 
tives. For  one's  own  security  it  is  not  necessary  for 
him  to  prove  to  others  the  sincerity  of  his  motives 
and  his  acts.  And  It  would  be  a  futile  effort  to 
vindicate  himself  with  that  lowest  specimen  of  all 
moral  depravities,  the  anonymous  accuser,  because 
such  a  one  embodies  the  unworthy  things  which 
he  charges  and  declares  the  consciousness  of  his  own 
low  motives.    This  is  his  righteous  judgment! 

The  man  who  exercises  free  speech  must  under- 
stand that  It  Is  a  challenge.  It  will  be  protested. 
The  only  thing  that  ought  to  concern  him  Is  the 
answer  of  fact  and  of  sound  reason.  Slurs,  Im- 
pugned motives,  are  always  a  concession.  When 
there  Is  nothing  more  to  be  opposed  to  one's  posi- 
tion, It  may  safely  be  assumed  that  that  position  is 
impregnable.  It  will  not  do  to  say  that  It  is  not 
worth  answering.  We  are  bound  to  answer  a  re- 
spectable contention  or  yield  to  it.  The  man  who 
cannot  be  answered  has  the  right  of  way;  the  man 
who  can  be  answered  must  step  aside. 

The  individual  champion  of  a  cause  is  more 
67 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

likely  to  have  thought  seriously  and  safely  than  the 
hllnd  followers  of  partisan  leaders.  The  world's 
history  Is  strewn  thick  with  such  incidents.  Nearly 
all  of  the  great  issues  have  been  lamentably  in  the 
minority  and  the  men  who  have  stood  in  the  front 
of  them  have  had  to  bear  obloquy.  The  great  con- 
sideration is  not  the  voices  of  to-day  but  the  voices 
of  the  to-morrows  into  which  will  be  streaming  the 
light  of  accomplished  facts. 

It  is  safe  to  assume  that  the  voice  of  progress 
will  be  vindicated  by  the  ages.  To  protest  small 
concepts,  to  champion  great  proportions  is  sure 
prophecy.  It  is  out  in  that  direction  that  we  find 
the  purposes  and  plans  of  God.  It  is  out  in  that 
direction  that  we  follow  the  orbit  of  large  and  noble 
human   events. 

The  right  to  be  heard  is  inherent  in  man  and 
fundamental  in  his  free  land.  The  right  to  be  fol- 
lowed must  depend  upon  what  reason  and  sound 
arguments  he  makes  known. 

If  no  age,  neither  his  own  nor  any  succeeding 
one,  hears  him,  he  has  spoken  in  vain.  If  he  utters 
truth  and  wisdom,  somewhere  at  some  time  It  will 
accomplish  that  whereunto  It  Is  sent.  It  will  not 
return  void.  If  it  proves  to  be  a  mistake,  neverthe- 
less he  who  speaks  his  convictions  has  the  ennobling 
satisfaction  of  having  obeyed  the  command  of  duty 
as  he  saw  it. 


CHAPTER   V 

REACTIONARIES 

THIS  is  a  time  prolific  in  odious  phrases  and 
titles.  We  have  the  "  Octopus,"  the 
"  Predatory  Wealth,"  the  "  Swollen  For- 
tunes," the  "  Monopolist,"  the  "  Reactionist,"  and 
others.  They  are  aimed  at  those  persons  or  busi- 
nesses that  have  become  victims  of  one  of  the  world's 
strange  fanaticisms. 

The  Reactionist  is  a  term  applied  to  those  who 
take  issue  with  what  they  believe  to  be  an  abuse  of 
the  Constitution  and  an  arbitrary  invasion  of  per- 
sonal rights.  Why  it  is  given  such  an  application 
I  do  not  understand.  It  certainly  is  not  by  its  legiti- 
mate definitions  if  It  is  meant  to  express  any  revolu- 
tion from  constitutional  forms  of  government  and 
the  established  order  of  things  in  the  commercial 
pursuits  of  men.  If  the  word  is  dissected,  it  means 
to  act  back,  and  the  example  given  is  the  reaction 
after  a  period  of  democracy  to  the  principles  and 
practices  which  that  democracy  contested  and  sup- 
planted. Its  appropriate  use,  therefore,  is  in  the 
description  of  that  autocratic  and  arbitrary  practice 
6  69 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

which  has  been  introduced  into  the  administration  of 
our  democratic  government  during  the  past  two  or 
three  years — unjustified  by  precedents  of  war  and  in 
a  time  of  solid  financial  stability  and  unprecedented 
prosperity. 

The  Reactionists  are  the  men  who  advocate 
"  stretching  the  Constitution,"  who  officially  rebuke 
judges  of  the  courts,  who  usurp  legislation  by  dic- 
tatorial messages  from  the  executive  office,  who 
attempt  to  force  receiverships  as  instruments  of 
prosecution,  who  prosecute  men  in  defiance  of  the 
ex  post  facto  provision  of  the  Constitution,  who  con- 
demn men  and  prejudge  them  as  undesirable  citizens 
when  their  lives  are  in  the  judicial  balances,  who 
arraign  men  as  criminals  and  then  set  in  motion 
against  them  the  machinery  of  the  Federal  Courts 
and  prosecuting  department,  who  insist  upon  brand- 
ing men  as  guilty  who  never  have  been  indicted  even 
in  the  cases  alleged — as  notoriously  characterized  a 
Federal  Court  within  the  past  summer  in  a  great  cor- 
poration case — who  sentence  men  for  alleged  mili- 
tary offenses  without  evidence  and  without  hearing, 
who  investigate  great  business  interests  for  alleged 
offenses  and  with  a  blare  of  trumpets  condemn  them 
— the  innocent  and  the  guilty  alike — in  all  of  the 
markets  of  the  world,  who  by  enforcing  an  imprac- 
ticable law  which  the  President  has  said  would 
reduce  business  to  chaos — a  law  which  had  lain 
dormant  since  its  enactment  because  unjust,  a  law 
forbidding  combination  in  business  that  has  been  the 

70 


REACTIONARIES 

business  practice  of  the  country  for  a  generation — 
and  who  upon  such  a  law  send  business  men  of  un- 
questioned integrity  to  jail,  who  threaten  to  inter- 
pret the  Constitution  so  as  to  evade  the  reserved 
rights  of  the  States  and  to  establish  paternal  gov- 
ernment by  the  subterfuge  of  Post  Roads,  who  by 
agitation  in  speech  and  the  public  press  disturb 
values  and  depreciate  the  properties  and  investments 
of  millions  of  our  people,  both  the  rich  and  the  poor 
— these  are  the  real  Reactionists. 

And  this  is  reaction  such  as  the  history  of  the 
world  cannot  show,  because  it  is  against  the  most 
perfect  form  of  democracy  that  men  ever  have  seen. 
It  could  not  occur  in  Russia  or  Turkey,  for  there  is 
no  democracy  in  those  countries  to  react  against.  It 
becomes  alarming  simply  from  the  fact  that  it  is  tol- 
erated thirty  days  in  this  country,  to  which  such 
things  never  have  been  known  since  the  Constitution 
was  adopted. 

To  say  that  men  who  protest  and  raise  a  warn- 
ing voice  against  these  monstrous  violations  of  con- 
stitutional rights  are  Reactionists  is  characteristic  of 
the  whole  high-handed  procedure.  It  is  of  a  piece 
with  the  cry  of  the  "  Millionaires'  Conspiracy,"  in- 
vented to  silence  the  just  protest  of  men  who  are 
being  harassed  and  whose  business  is  being  ruined 
under  the  cry  of  predatory  wealth. 

It  is  the  charge  of  a  reactionary  administration 
that  a  class  of  men  are  plotting  to  change  a  political 
policy  and  therefore  they  are  enemies  of  the  people, 

71 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

as  though  the  Constitution  guaranteed  to  any  of  our 
officials,  however  high,  the  right  to  continue  a 
*'  Policy  "  and  to  silence  objections  to  the  same  upon 
the  part  of  our  citizens  by  crying  conspiracy. 

I  submit  that  it  is  not  the  men  who  contend  for 
the  old  order  of  government,  that  has  stood  firm  as 
mountain  foundations  for  over  a  century  and  that 
is  the  astonishment  of  the  civilized  world,  who  are 
the  reactionists,  but  It  is  the  men  who  are  reacting 
back  to  an  oligarchy  and  autocracy  by  raising  Issues 
which  blind  the  people  and  who  are  appealing  to 
class  prejudice,  which  rallies  every  form  of  discon- 
tent and  hate,  of  anarchy  and  socialism  in  the  coun- 
try. Such  men  are  the  reactionists.  Men  who 
would  have  a  government  by  men  and  not  by  law — 
men  who  would  give  government  over  to  the  discre- 
tion of  an  executive  and  substitute  star-chamber  com- 
missions for  the  grand  jury  and  the  courts. 

It  is  astonishing  that  conservatives,  that  sturdy 
and  unyielding  patriots  of  the  constitutional  govern- 
ment of  their  forefathers  are  reactionists.  Against 
what  are  they  reacting?  Certainly  not  against  the 
Constitution,  surely  not  against  the  interpretation  and 
administration  of  a  Jefferson,  a  Madison,  a  Lincoln, 
or  a  Washington.  Not  a  thin  shadow  made  by  the 
exigencies  of  war  falls  out  of  any  past  administration 
as  a  precedent  for  the  astonishingly  arrogant  practices 
of  the  present  hour. 

Washington,  writing  to  John  Jay,  says :  "  Let 
.   .   .  every  violation  of  the   Constitution  be  repre- 

72 


REACTIONARIES 

hended.  If  defective,  let  it  be  amended,  but  not 
suffered  to  be  trampled  upon  whilst  it  has  an  ex- 
istence." There  is  no  intimation  here  of  the  expedi- 
ency of  the  reactionary  stretching  of  the  Constitution 
or  of  usurping  the  authority  reserved  by  the  States 
under  the  pretense  of  Post  Roads  or  of  appointing 
receivers  to  manage  private  business  confiscated  by 
the  government  in  time  of  peace. 

But  if  the  men  who  protest  against  the  abuses  of 
our  constitutional  government  are  Reactionists,  have 
they  not  a  right  to  react  by  every  argument  and  per- 
suasive influence  that  they  can  use?  How  long  since 
it  came  to  pass  that  citizens  must  calmly  acquiesce 
in  things  honestly  believed  by  them  to  be  destructive 
to  the  Republic?  What  consummate  arrogance  if 
not  insolence  that  covers  itself  with  an  armor  of  un- 
disputed authority  and  hurls  epithets  at  men  who 
point  to  the  Constitution  and  the  law,  and  not  men 
as  authority  and  government.  Such  reaction  is  pa- 
triotism of  the  highest  order.  If  it  be  a  Reactionist 
to  contend  for  the  government  given  to  us  by  the 
gigantic  labors  of  those  summer  weeks  of  1787  and 
acclaimed  by  the  mighty  voice  of  the  people  as  one 
State  after  another  adopted  it,  then  no  higher  civic 
honor  could  be  worn  by  an  American  citizen;  but 
if  to  be  a  Reactionist  is  to  dig  under  any  stone  of  that 
foundation  or  to  substitute  for  any  part  of  the  sacred 
structure  a  forced  and  false  construction,  or  to  mis- 
use it  as  a  fortress  of  arrogant  discretion  and  arbi- 
trary assertion  of  government  by  men  instead  of  by 

73 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

law,  of  government  by  commissions  instead  of  by  the 
frequently  chosen  representatives  of  the  people,  then 
to  be  a  Reactionist  is  to  be  classed  with  the  foes  of 
our  government,  whatever  may  be  pleaded  for  errors 
in  honest  intentions. 

The  Reactionist  against  the  Constitution,  who 
presumes  upon  any  liberty  with  It  or  to  ignore  it  in 
any  particular,  strikes  at  the  only  source  of  authority 
in  a  country  like  ours. 

Authority  was  not  given  to  men  but  to  law,  and 
men  were  made  custodians  of  the  sacred  laws.  They 
cannot  go  a  step  beyond  the  law.  The  minute  they  do 
so  they  unclothe  themselves  of  authority.  The  law 
has  no  moods,  no  whims,  no  eccentricities,  no  passion, 
no  conceits,  no  personal  vindictlveness  and  petty 
spites,  no  policies  and  partisan  ends,  nobody  to  elect 
either  Gov^ernor  or  President.  It  has  no  quarrel  with 
anybody.  It  can  be  trusted  to  rule.  Men  know  what 
it  is  because  it  is  always  the  same  while  it  lasts,  and 
if  amended  they  know  what  it  is  and  that  it  will  be 
made  certain  and  sure. 

We  do  not  know  what  a  discretion  will  do  for 
us.  We  know  the  fallibility  of  men  and  that  our 
founders  protected  us  against  them  by  making  law 
and  not  men  to  rule  us. 

The  great  men  of  1787  created  coordinate  forms 
of  government  and  made  them  separate  and  inde- 
pendent and  a  check  each  upon  the  other,  and  to 
quote  the  words  of  John  Fiske,  singularly  appropri- 
ate to  this  time,  "  If  either  one  should  ever  succeed 

74 


REACTIONARIES 

in  acquiring  the  whole  sovereignty,  then  they  thought 
there  would  be  an  end  to  American  liberty." 

To  quote  Fiske  further:  "If  the  day  should  ever 
arrive  (which  God  forbid!)  when  the  people  of  the 
different  parts  of  our  country  shall  allow  their  local 
affairs  to  be  administered  by  prefects  sent  from  Wash- 
ington [Commissions?]  and  when  the  self-govern- 
ment of  the  States  shall  have  been  so  far  lost  as  that 
of  the  departments  of  France  or  even  so  far  as  that 
of  the  counties  of  England — on  that  day  the  pro- 
gressive political  career  of  the  American  people  will 
have  come  to  an  end,  and  the  hopes  that  have  been 
built  upon  it  for  the  future  happiness  and  prosperity 
of  mankind  will  be  wrecked  forever. 

"  I  do  not  think  that  the  historian  writing  at  the 
present  day  need  fear  any  such  direful  calamity,  for 
the  past  century  has  shown  most  instructively  how  in 
such  a  society  as  ours  the  sense  of  political  dangers 
slowly  makes  its  way  through  the  whole  mass  of  the 
people,  until  movements  at  length  are  made  to  avert 
them  and  the  pendulum  swings  in  the  opposite  di- 
rection." What  would  John  Fiske  say  of  the  gov- 
ernment by  prefects  sent  from  Washington  to  gov- 
ern the  local  affairs  of  the  people  In  transportation  and 
trade  to-day !  Would  he  say  that  those  men  who 
have  some  sense  of  political  dangers  are  simply  re- 
actionaries to  be  snuffed  out  by  an  ultrapartisan 
press  ? 

Precisely  the  thing  that  our  forefathers  guarded 
against  has  come  to  pass  in  spite  of  their  wise  pro- 

75 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

vision.  By  an  attempt  to  control  Federal  Judges,  and 
by  dictating  legislation  it  is  sought  to  vest  the  "  whole 
sovereignty  "  in  one  form  of  the  government.  That 
*'  palladium  of  liberty,"  "  the  separate  and  distinct 
offices  "  of  the  government  is  practically  a  fiction  both 
in  the  national  and  in  the  State  government. 

John  Fiske,  in  writing  upon  this  ideal  form  of 
government,  said  of  the  result  of  the  convention  that 
gave  us  the  Constitution :  "  Thus  at  length  was  re- 
alized the  sublime  conception  of  a  Nation  in  which 
every  citizen  lives  under  two  complete  and  well- 
rounded  systems  of  laws,  the  State  law  and  the  Fed- 
eral law,  each  with  its  legislature,  its  executive  and 
its  judiciary,  moving  one  within  the  other  noiselessly 
and  without  friction.  It  was  one  of  the  longest 
reaches  of  constructive  statesmanship  ever  known  in 
the  world.  There  never  was  anything  like  it  before, 
and  in  Europe  it  needs  much  explanation  to-day  even 
for  educated  statesmen  who  have  never  seen  its  work- 
ings. Yet  to  Americans  it  has  become  so  much  a  mat- 
ter of  course  that  they,  too,  sometimes  need  to  be 
told  how  much  it  signifies."  And  the  need  never  has 
been  emphasized  more  than  now. 

I  wonder  if  John  Fiske  would  think  to-day  that 
there  is  no  need  that  the  historian  warn  us  of  the 
danger  of  a  concentrated  sovereignty,  of  the  possi- 
bility that  the  people  will  allow  their  local  affairs  to 
be  administered  by  "prefects"  from  Washington! 
The  choice  of  their  very  representatives  in  some  in- 
stances has  been  dictated  from  Washington.     Their 

76 


REACTIONARIES 

candidates  for  Governor  must  please  the  authority  at 
Washington  if  they  hope  for  election. 

And  those  who  protest  against  such  invasion  of 
local  affairs  are  Reactionists !  We  are  warned  that 
the  principal  streets  of  our  cities  may  be  taken  in 
charge  as  Post  Roads  for  interstate  purposes,  our  local 
business  may  be  condemned  and  placed  In  the  hands 
of  receivers  and  managed  by  "  prefects  "  from  Wash- 
ington if  the  administration  can  secure  the  sanction  of 
the  courts !  And  an  objection  to  this  high-handed 
governmental  piracy  and  an  appeal  to  the  Constitu- 
tion is  reactionary! 

That  was  a  singular  prophecy  of  Macaulay  in 
1857  when  in  discussing  our  destiny  he  said:  "  It  Is 
quite  plain  that  your  government  will  never  be  able 
to  restrain  a  distressed  and  discontented  majority. 
For  with  you  the  majority  is  the  goyernment  and 
has  the  rich,  who  are  always  a  minority,  absolutely 
at  its  mercy.  The  day  will  come  when  In  the  State 
of  New  York  a  multitude  of  people,  none  of  whom 
have  had  more  than  half  a  breakfast  or  expect  to 
have  more  than  half  a  dinner,  will  choose  a  Legis- 
lature. Is  it  possible  to  doubt  what  sort  of  Legis- 
lature will  be  chosen?  On  one  side  Is  a  statesman 
preaching  patience,  respect  for  vested  rights,  strict 
observance  of  public  faith.  On  the  other  Is  a  dema- 
gogue ranting  about  the  tyranny  of  capitalists  and 
usurers  and  asking  why  anybody  should  be  permitted 
...  to  ride  in  a  carriage  while  thousands  of  honest 
folks  are  in  want  of  necessaries.     Which  of  the  two 

77 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

candidates  Is  liable  to  be  preferred  by  a  workingman 
who  hears  his  children  cry  for  more  bread?  Here 
[in  his  own  country]  the  sufferers  are  not  the  rulers. 
The  supreme  power  is  in  the  hands  of  a  class,  numer- 
ous indeed,  but  select,  of  an  educated  class,  of  a 
class  which  is  and  knows  itself  to  be  deeply  interested 
in  the  security  of  property  and  the  maintenance  of 
order.  Accordingly,  the  malcontents  are  firmly  yet 
gently  restrained.  The  bad  time  is  got  over  without 
robbing  the  wealthy  to  relieve  the  indigent.  The 
springs  of  national  prosperity  begin  to  flow  again; 
work  is  plentiful,  wages  rise,  and  all  is  tranquillity 
and  cheerfulness.  Through  such  seasons  the  United 
States  will  have  to  pass  in  the  course  of  the  next  cen- 
tury, if  not  of  this.  How  will  you  pass  through 
them?  I  heartily  wish  you  a  good  deliverance,  but 
my  reason  and  my  wishes  are  at  war  and  I  cannot 
help  foreboding  the  worst." 

We  believe  in  the  sufferers  and  the  prosperous 
being  rulers  together,  but  in  such  times  as  shall  find 
the  sufferers  in  the  majority  we  need  "  the  statesman 
preaching  patience,  respect  for  vested  rights,  strict 
observance  of  public  faith."  With  such  statesmen 
and  such  reverence  for  law  and  the  constitutional 
rights  of  men  to  personal  liberty,  to  property,  to  the 
pursuit  of  business  and  happiness,  we  are  In  no  dan- 
ger. Such  statesmen  have  carried  us  through  as 
serious  agitations  as  are  threateningly  portrayed  by 
Macaulay. 

But   it   becomes    quite   another   aspect    and   one 
78 


REACTIONARIES 

that  justifies  his  "  forebodings  "  when  statesmen  are 
displaced  by  "  demagogues  ranting  about  the  tyr- 
anny of  capitalists  "  in  the  exciting  language  of 
"  swollen  fortunes,"  "  predatory  wealth,"  and 
"  tainted  money." 

The  administration  joining  itself  to  the  malcon- 
tents and  inviting  them  into  its  cave  of  Adullam  in 
a  time  when  every  man's  dinner  pail  is  full,  with  its 
sympathy  freely  and  excitedly  given  to  attacks  upon 
the  railroads,  the  enormous  industries  carried  on  by 
massed  capital,  and  the  corporate  forms  of  business 
beyond  certain  socialistic  limitations,  though  these 
provide  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and  women 
with  work  at  higher  wages  than  men  ever  have  re- 
ceived for  manual  toil,  has  brought  the  cloud  into  our 
sky  that  Macaulay  saw,  and  it  is  much  bigger  than 
a  man's  hand.  Whether  it  shall  gather  to  itself  as 
a  storm  center  the  furious  elements  that  have  hither- 
to been  firmly  but  gently  restrained  is  to  depend 
upon  whether  statesmen  or  demagogues  are  to  con- 
trol in  this  country.  With  the  type  of  statesmen  of 
Lincoln,  Harrison,  Cleveland,  and  McKinley,  we 
should  have  nothing  to  fear.  With  the  present  agi- 
tating and  eruptive  administration  and  with  the  chief 
voices  of  the  other  political  party  echoing  the  same 
"  ranting  about  the  tyranny  of  capitalists,"  we  may 
expect  a  revolution  which  shall  become  a  conspicuous 
date  in  history  unless  the  sober-thinking  people  awake 
to  an  imperiled  inheritance. 

The  aid  and  sympathy  given  by  political  leaders 

79 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

for  political  purposes  to  a  socialism  that  has  been 
straining  at  its  leash  In  this  country  for  a  genera- 
tion Is  appalling.  It  Is  Insanity.  Has  anyone  heard 
any  protest  by  the  anarchist  and  the  socialist  against 
the  political  doctrines  now  being  preached  by  pres- 
idential candidates  and  being  enforced  by  the  prose- 
cuting machinery  of  the  country? 

When  a  dozen  great  business  men  are  compelled 
to  travel  to  a  court  one  thousand  miles  away  in  the 
discomfort  of  midsummer  heat,  and  at  the  abandon- 
ment of  interests  which  circuit  the  globe,  when  but 
three  of  them  were  called  to  testify  and  their  testi- 
mony was  Inconsequential  and  utterly  useless  for  in- 
formation as  the  court  already  possessed  it  and  the 
judge  could  have  received  It  by  affidavit  as  well  If 
not  better  than  orally,  what  was  the  justification  of 
this  tyrannical  and  sensational  procedure  by  many 
leading  partisan  newspapers  which  felt  that  an  apol- 
ogy should  be  made?  They  said  that  it  would  show 
the  people  that  the  rich  as  well  as  the  poor  must 
obey  the  law.  Did  anyone  doubt  that  who  had  the 
intelligence  to  appreciate  such  a  showing?  What 
was  It  but  an  attempt  to  secure  the  applause  of  the 
socialistic  element  of  the  country  at  the  expense 
of  citizens  made  odious  for  the  purpose  of  this 
show? 

The  Reactionists  are  playing  to  the  galler}',  and 
the  gallery  is  becoming  dangerously  crowded  for  the 
safety  of  the  structure  of  the  body  politic.  Justice, 
statesmanship,  citizenship,  are  being  played  as  a  farce 

80 


REACTIONARIES 

to  excite  the  applause  of  the  unthinking  or  the  angry 
thinking. 

De  Tocquevllle,  in  his  "  Democracy  in  America," 
has  said:  "  In  America  those  complaints  against  prop- 
erty in  general  which  are  so  frequent  in  Europe  are 
never  heard,  because  in  America  there  are  no  paupers; 
and  as  everyone  has  property  of  his  own  to  defend, 
everyone  recognizes  the  principle  upon  which  he  holds 
it."  He  did  not  foresee  the  time  when  the  increase 
of  property  by  some  would  excite  envy  and  prejudice 
upon  the  part  of  the  many  and  a  doctrine  of  equal 
division  would  be  preached  and  the  politician  would 
use  elements  of  discontent  to  advance  his  purposes. 
He  did  not  see  that  a  time  would  come  when  our  very 
prosperity  would  be  made  ground  of  complaint  and 
men  would  seek  to  destroy  the  opportunities  of  riches, 
and  set  a  bound  to  the  capacities  and  resources  of 
their  fellow  men. 

In  no  part  of  the  world,  in  no  period  of  history 
has  there  ever  been  excited  such  unjust  hatred  of  the 
rich  and  such  an  effort  to  embarrass  the  accumula- 
tions of  great  fortunes.  Even  the  President  of  the 
United  States  joins  his  voice  in  the  well-known 
phrase,  "  swollen  fortunes,"  and  proposes  their  se- 
questration to  the  State  by  a  class  tax.  What  Is  this 
but  reaction  to  that  period  in  human  history  which 
is  too  near  to  be  forgotten  so  soon? 

The  falsely  called  Reactionists  are  the  hope  of  the 
country,  and  their  numbers  are  hopefully  increasing. 
They  refuse  to  give  up  the  ship  to  pirates  who  seek 

8i 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

its  command  that  they  may  destroy  it.  They  warn 
those  now  in  command  that  compromise  with  the  en- 
emies of  constitutional  government  or  with  those  who 
would  bend  it  to  their  theories,  that  the  encourage- 
ment of  class  agitation  and  the  hatred  of  the  rich  and 
of  the  great  utilities  is  far  removed  from  common 
prudence,  is  lacking  in  every  element  of  sound  states- 
manship. It  is  a  political  course  which  has  given 
more  encouragement  to  the  dangerous  element  of  our 
country  than  have  all  the  reenforcements  from  Eu- 
rope in  a  generation.  Doctrines  advocated  on  the 
platforms  of  the  anarchists  are  the  extreme  of  dan- 
gerous folly. 

To  plead  for  it  that  such  a  course  was  necessary 
to  pacify  the  increasing  socialism  of  the  hour,  that 
but  for  the  persecution  of  the  rich  and  the  assaults 
upon  corporate  business  we  should  soon  have  been  in 
the  hands  of  the  socialists,  is  as  untrue  to  historic 
facts  as  it  is  puerile  in  both  reasoning  and  courage. 
It  is  a  strange  application  of  doing  evil  that  good 
may  come. 

Have  we  become  so  enervated,  so  servile  that  we 
can  no  longer  oppose  sound  principles  to  rotten  ones, 
that  we  can  no  longer  array  our  constitutional  forms 
against  the  assaults  of  the  chameleon  socialist  who 
clamors  against  the  freest  land  on  -earth  as  despotic 
and  against  proportions  of  commerce,  which  his  little 
brain  cannot  grasp,  as  oppressive  to  the  poor  ?  Must 
we  make  terms  with  him?  Are  we  to  be  degraded 
by  being  told  in  the  cowardly  sophistry  of  certain 

82 


REACTIONARIES 

editorials  that  we  must  "  stretch  the  Constitution," 
that  we  must  anticipate  him  in  assaihng  our  institu- 
tions, that  we  must  pacify  him  by  putting  our  busi- 
ness men  into  jail  or  fining  them  for  too  successfully 
competing  in  the  business  enterprises  of  the  twenti- 
eth century? 

Shades  of  our  forefathers!  Would  that  they 
would  pass  that  we  might  see  what  men  were  before 
they  skulked  away  from  patriotism  and  the  responsi- 
bility of  a  definite  and  positive  citizenship  into  mere 
trickster  politicians  bartering  every  principle  for  the 
pottage  of  a  compromised  power  and  dignity. 

There  must  be  patriots  enough  left  in  our  coun- 
try to  resist  successfully  even  in  these  times  the  vio- 
lent and  reckless  passions  which,  Phaeton-like,  have 
taken  the  reins  and  care  not  where  they  drive  if  only 
men  will  applaud  their  reckless  skill  in  lashing  on 
their  steeds  of  fiery  and  ungovernable  spirit. 

There  are  those  who  must  be  pardoned  if  they 
prefer  the  old  highway,  the  old  constitutional  team, 
and  a  driver  who  cares  more  for  safety  than  for 
speed. 


CHAPTER    VI 

STRETCHING  THE    CONSTITUTION 

A  PROMINENT  college  president  has  re- 
cently traced  the  changes  which  have  taken 
place  in  the  exercise  of  the  office  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States.  Whether  these  are 
in  the  direction  of  improvement  and  progress  he 
does  not  tell  us.  The  changes  are  so  apparent  that 
it  was  not  necessary  to  describe  them.  What  is  of 
vastly  greater  importance  is  to  show  us  that  they 
have  been  created  by  sound  and  safe  governmental 
evolution,  that  they  are  the  result  of  law  by  the  ex- 
pansive and  logical  application  of  the  Constitution 
and  are  therefore  wise  and  helpful,  or  that  having 
grown  up  by  arrogance  on  one  side  and  indifference 
on  the  other  they  are  a  serious  menace,  a  mischiev- 
ous invasion  of  constitutional  right  and  a  disorder  of 
the  coordinate  branches  of  government  which  should 
be  resisted  and  removed  as  dangerous  excrescent 
growths. 

And  what  would  be  most  important  of  all  is  to 
show  us,  if  these  changes  are  not  lawful,  how  we  can 
safely  retrace  our  steps  from  the  treacherous  quick- 

84 


STRETCHING   THE    CONSTITUTION 

sands.  We  confess  that  we  cannot  understand  how 
the  President  has  taken  to  himself  any  large  pre- 
rogatives and  added  numerous  special  functions  to 
his  office  by  mere  lapse  of  time  or  by  an  executive 
assertion  not  prescribed  in  the  Constitution.  What 
he  is  and  what  he  can  do  have  been  created  for  him. 
He  can  add  nothing  and  omit  nothing.  If  he  is 
more  than  the  chief  executive  officer  of  the  govern- 
ment with  clearly  defined  duties  and  limitations,  it 
would  be  interesting  to  know  how  he  became  what  he 
is,  and  secured  the  right  of  doing  the  things  he  does 
that  are  extraconstitutional.  Who  gave  these  things? 
Who  permitted  them?  If  he  has  taken  them,  he 
has  exceeded  his  right  and  his  oath  of  office.  If  the 
people  have  given  them,  there  is  but  one  way  that 
they  had  the  right  to  give  them.  They  have  no  right 
or  privilege  in  any  other  way  than  by  clear  and  un- 
mistakable law.  If  they  concede  them  because  of 
their  indifference  to  such  matters  or  because  of  the 
popularity  of  the  President  who  arrogates  them  or 
because  of  the  unpopularity  of  contesting  them,  it 
is  simply  a  case  of  disloyalty  to  our  constitutional 
form  of  government.  The  old  maxim  that  "  eter- 
nal vigilance  is  the  price  of  liberty  "  is  being  for- 
gotten. 

It  is  true  that  conditions  in  this  country  are  most 
favorable  to  official  arrogance  and  aggression.  The 
Nation  is  absorbed  in  matters  of  gigantic  develop- 
ment, in  invention,  in  science,  and  in  the  arts.  It 
is  attaching  far  less  importance  to  government  as 
7  85 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

such  than  in  former  times.  The  great  political 
parties  have  no  distinct  creeds  or  issues.  For  years 
it  has  been  a  mere  question  of  ins  and  outs  and 
everything  has  been  used  to  those  ends — money, 
tariff,  taxes,  immigration,  until  now  both  parties  are 
growling  over  the  same  bone  and  contending  as  to 
whose  it  is  by  right.  The  Democrats  say  it  is  their 
bone,  and  the  Republicans  say,  "  We  got  it  first." 
The  serious  part  of  it  is  that  it  is  a  live  bone  and 
the  gnawing  of  it  hurts  the  whole  country. 

The  contention  of  reform  is  not  for  reform  but 
for  votes.  It  is  a  mighty  political  stroke,  the  great- 
est the  demagogues  of  both  parties  ever  have  made. 
It  appeals  to  that  pharisaical  moral  pretension  of 
human  nature  which  blinds  men  to  themselves  and 
to  the  motives  of  their  reckless  leaders.  We  go  on 
therefore  with  our  absorbing  pursuits  and  leave  the 
moral  cleansing  of  the  land  to  the  political  reformers. 
To  contest  them  would  be  self-condemnatory,  a 
straight  plea  of  moral  obliquity,  therefore  whatever 
the  liberty  they  take  with  such  an  antiquated  thing 
as  a  Constitution  is  a  small  matter.  It  is  for  "  the 
people's  rights,"   therefore  who  shall  protest? 

The  mighty  majority  of  our  citizens  are  not 
sufficiently  concerned  with  the  great  corporate  busi- 
ness interests  of  the  country  to  awake  to  self-defense. 
They  cannot  be  expected  to  see  far  consequences, 
especially  when  car  fares  and  freights  and  prices  of 
corporate  products  are  attacked.  It  is  such  things 
that  appeal  to  the  average  interest. 

86 


STRETCHING   THE    CONSTITUTION 

It  is  such  a  pleasant  thing  to  see  the  world's 
wrongs  being  righted  when  we  are  not  the  sinners ! 
And  then  it  is  a  novel  way  of  regenerating  a  people 
that  we  have  fallen  upon,  and  we  are  a  great  people 
to  try  novelties.  It  used  to  be  thought  that  you 
must  get  at  a  man's  motives  and  ideals  and  in  that 
way  lift  by  a  great  ethical  force  the  common  senti- 
ment of  honesty,  but  here  comes  a  new  doctrine  that 
depravity  is  in  corporate  forms  and  subject  to  rail- 
road rates — a  fact  that  has  been  strangely  over- 
looked by  moral  philosophers  until  this  administra- 
tion. 

Now  you  take  a  country  full  of  business  of  In- 
finite variety  and  amazing  prosperity  and  a  govern- 
ment that  proposes  to  take  care  of  all  the  moral 
aberrations  and  adjust  all  of  the  variant  conditions 
of  the  nations  of  the  earth  and  the  people  are  not 
going  to  be  sensitive  to  the  violation  of  constitu- 
tional prerogatives.  It  is  easy  to  answer  all  of  that 
by  saying,  "  Well,  it  ought  to  be  lawful  if  it  is  not." 
Of  course  that  is  the  doctrine  of  a  mob  that  hangs 
a  man.  And  that  is  what  a  people  becomes  when 
it  disregards  the  constitutional  order  of  government 
and  substitutes  personal  leadership.  Never  has 
there  been  a  time  when  it  was  easier  for  an  Executive 
to  justify  despotic  departure  from  our  honored  in- 
stitutions and  when  the  people  would  so  readily  con- 
sent to  it.  No  adventurer  of  the  coup  d'etat  ever 
had  a  happier  conjunction.  Indeed,  the  form  need 
not   be    changed    since    both    parties    in    their    mad 

87 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

revelry  of  reform  consent  to  the  change  of  the  es- 
sence. 

For  many  months  we  have  been  under  a  mon- 
archy in  everything  but  the  name.  How  long  will 
the  country  continue  to  be  so  absorbed  in  its  selfish 
indifference  that,  having  eyes,  it  will  not  see?  The 
change  of  the  presidential  prerogatives  is  going 
on.  How  much  farther  could  it  go  and  retain 
a  semblance  of  what  the  Constitution  provided  it 
should  be? 

One  of  these  changes  involves  our  judicial  rights 
and  personal  liberties.  Recall  an  example  or  two. 
The  President  of  the  United  States  for  political  pur- 
poses arraigns  a  great  business  of  the  country  by 
message,  without  jury,  without  indictment,  or  any 
processes  of  law  except  an  ex  parte  report  of  an 
inexperienced  commissioner,  with  no  opportunity 
upon  the  part  of  the  accused  to  be  heard.  The  men 
of  this  business  are  branded  as  dishonest  and  their 
business  is  outlawed.  Was  ever  such  a  thing  known 
in  this  country?  Was  there  ever  anything  more 
despotic  in  this  country?  That  message  was  a  no- 
tice to  every  Federal  Judge  in  the  country  that  the 
merits  of  his  decision  in  this  case  would  be  noted 
in  the  White  House.  Every  juryman  in  the  country 
has  been  told  how  the  verdict  should  be  made  up. 

The  enginery  of  prosecution  is  set  in  motion. 
A  test  case  is  to  be  heard.  Two  days  before  the 
hearing  the  Bureau  of  Corporations,  one  of  the 
President's  big  sticks,  makes  a  report  of  a  startlingly 

88 


STRETCHING   THE    CONSTITUTION 

damaging  character,  much  of  which  was  subse- 
quently proved  untrue.  Was  this  a  coincidence? 
The  accused  and  condemned  (by  message)  cor- 
poration is  dragged  fifteen  hundred  miles  from  its 
incorporated  headquarters,  away  from  its  books, 
documents,  and  witnesses,  into  a  State  which  has  al- 
ways been  notoriously  hostile  to  its  interests.  Was 
this  a  mere  incident  without  unfair  and  dishonor- 
able intent?     Was  it  the  famous  "square  deal"  ? 

It  certainly  is  a  mighty  change  that  has  come 
over  our  presidential  office  when  it  becomes  such  a 
prosecuting,  not  to  say  persecuting,  instrument. 

Perhaps  it  will  be  replied  by  partisans  that  noth- 
ing of  this  will  influence  the  merits  of  a  decision  in  the 
case.  But  it  must  be  conceded  that  it  is  at  least 
unfortunate  that  judges  appointed  by  the  President 
and  partisans,  at  least  in  some  cases,  among  jurymen 
should  know  the  opinion  and  declared  feelings  of 
the  President  in  cases  to  be  adjudicated.  There  al- 
ways would  be  a  question  in  the  event  of  conviction 
as  to  who  decided  the  case.  And  it  would  be  em- 
phasized by  the  fact,  never  to  be  forgotten  but  it 
is  hoped  never  to  be  repeated,  that  a  certain  judge 
was  rebuked  and  disgraced  In  that  rebuke  for  decid- 
ing a  cause  contrary  to  the  Executive's  wishes  or 
notion  of  the  law. 

The  Constitution  very  clearly  defines  the  law- 
making bodies,  and  to  make  these  laws  the  country 
elects  several  hundred  men  from  all  parts  of  the 
land,   representing  the  entire  country's  needs.     The 

89 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

making  of  laws  by  these  bodies  has  become  a  fiction. 
We  are  told  that  no  law  can  be  made  without  the 
consent  of  the  President.  In  times  past  Congress 
has  had  sufficient  courage  and  self-respect  to  pass 
an  act  over  a  veto,  but  now  it  is  so  obedient  to 
its  master's  will  that  it  does  not  do  anything  that 
is  likely  to  be  vetoed.  We  are  told  by  the  college 
president  referred  to  that  our  citizens  interested  in 
legislation  no  longer  go  to  congressmen  and  senators 
with  their  requests,  but  they  go  to  the  White  House. 
The  President  has  taken  the  patronage  and  the  con- 
gressmen have  yielded  it  gracefully. 

We  have  a  Douma  at  Washington  which  must  be 
careful  how  it  acts  or,  like  the  ill-fated  Wadsworth, 
its  members  will  not  come  back! 

Yes,  it  is  a  prodigious  change  in  the  presiden- 
tial prerogatives.  But  one  cannot  help  thinking 
what  might  happen  if  the  mighty  worthies  of  a  gen- 
eration ago  were  to  walk  back  into  those  legislative 
halls,  the  windows  of  which  are  open  now  so  rever- 
ently toward  the  White  House. 

It  will  be  said  by  some  in  justification  of  the 
mighty  change  that  we  get  better  laws  and  their  bet- 
ter enforcement.  That  impeachment  of  the  great 
past  will  not  stand.  But  if  it  would  stand,  it  is  a 
dangerous  bit  of  reasoning,  for  it  will  not  always  be 
that  we  shall  have  one  man  who  is  wiser  than  all 
men.  Our  next  President  may  be  simply  an  ordinary 
man. 

Our  safety  is  in  getting  back  to  the  Constitution 
90 


STRETCHING    THE    CONSTITUTION 

as  soon  as  possible.  How  to  do  It  is  the  question. 
A  liberty  taken  becomes  too  often  a  right  asserted. 
It  is  making  law  by  usage  and  it  goes  on  until  the 
opposition  is  silenced. 

The  only  secure  form  of  government  is  by  the 
written  instrument,  and  the  man  who  is  to  obey  It  is 
not  the  man  who  should  be  trusted  to  interpret  it. 
The  wisdom  of  our  fathers  was  prescient.  The 
people  through  their  representatives  were  to  make 
laws.  The  laws  were  to  be  interpreted  by  courts. 
The  laws  were  to  be  executed  by  a  man  of 
themselves  chosen  for  that  purpose.  The  laws  were 
made  by  many  men,  and  they  were  passed  in  review 
critically.  They  were  the  result  of  the  best  thought 
of  the  ages.  They  have  survived  party  passion  and 
self-interest.  They  have  responded  to  the  judicial 
test.  They  can  be  trusted.  If  a  change  Is  to  be 
made  it  is  under  such  careful  provisions  as  to  safe- 
guard against  hasty  and  Ill-considered  action  or  per- 
sonal abuse  of  privilege.  A  man  is  sometimes  fal- 
lible, impulsive,  self-interested,  conceited,  and  vain. 
His  wisdom  is  partial.  There  never  has  been  a  man 
on  earth  who  could  be  trusted  with  unlimited  power. 
And  it  becomes  less  possible  as  a  Nation  increases  in 
extent  and  complexity  of  Interests. 

The  man  who  could  be  most  trusted  is  he  who 
will  use  the  wisdom  of  the  mighty  men  whose  wis- 
dom set  the  bounds  of  government.  And  he  who 
can  be  least  trusted  is  the  man  of  such  exalted  self- 
reliance   as  to  chafe  against  the   restraints  of  con- 

91 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

stitutlonal  limitations  and  declare  that  they  must  be 
reversed  "  if  they  mean  the  people's  wrongs." 

Our  Constitution  should  be  reverenced  like  our 
Bible,  and  if  it  is  to  be  revised  the  revision  must 
be  done  by  the  authority  of  legally  constituted  re- 
visers, by  an  authority  created  by  the  people  who 
create  presidents  and,  therefore,  as  a  people  are 
greater  than  presidents.  No  public  servant  of  the 
people  should  be  permitted  to  trifle  with  the  people's 
authority  in  a  clearly  expressed  mandate.  Great  em- 
phasis should  be  placed  upon  this  because  of  the  ten- 
dency of  our  times  to  substitute  men  for  institutions, 
the  popular  leader  for  ancient  law.  It  is  a  time 
when  the  bright  man,  the  bold  man,  even  the  auda- 
cious man  with  a  following  compels  the  right  of  way. 
The  question  is  not  whether  he  is  going  according 
to  law.  It  Is  enough  and  a  better  thing  that  he 
goes,  that  he  brings  things  to  pass.  That,  unfortu- 
nately, suits  the  American  temperament.  That  may 
do  in  given  cases.  The  results  may  seem  to  justify 
it.  But  it  is  perilous,  as  I  have  remarked,  because 
it  comes  to  be  a  precedent  which  Is  an  unwritten  law 
for  men  whose  liberty  is  attended  by  disaster.  The 
unwise  man  sometimes  succeeds  to  office  In  our  form 
of  government. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  we  are  told,  as  an  apology  for  re- 
cent events,  did  an  extraconstitutlonal  thing  with 
a  judicial  decision  upon  a  Civil  War  issue.  It  has 
been  justified  by  the  result,  but  Its  aftermath  appeared 
long  years  after  in  the  impulsive  and  Injudicious  re- 

92 


STRETCHING    THE    CONSTITUTION 

buke  of  Judge  Humphrey  under  circumstances  that 
no  judicial  mind  can  uphold  or  excuse. 

Can  anyone  tell  the  exceptions  or  extensions  that 
are  to  be  made  or  how  far  afield  we  shall  wander 
if  any  liberty  whatever  is  to  be  taken  with  the  pre- 
scribed bounds  of  an  office?  If  any  single  liberty 
can  be  taken,  why  not  every  liberty?  What  pre- 
vents any  other  changes  being  made  in  the  same  way 
that  changes  freely  admitted  have  been  made?  Are 
Presidents  to  change  their  official  functions  to  suit 
themselves?  President  Wilson  tells  us  that  the  Pres- 
ident is  a  leader  of  the  people.  Who  made  him  a 
leader  of  the  people?  There  may  properly  be  a 
leader  of  a  party  and  leaders  of  the  people,  but  it 
never  was  intended  that  a  President  should  lead  the 
people.  That  is  an  office  in  which  the  incumbent 
must  be  the  servant  of  the  people  and  take  his  com- 
mands from  the  people  and  go  no  faster  than  the 
people  have  declared  their  purpose.  Even  the  terms 
upon  which  he  can  advise  them  are  prescribed.  He 
cannot  rule  them.  It  never  was  contemplated  that 
he  should  use  the  rewards  or  threats  of  his  office 
to  enforce  his  advice  upon  Congress,  or  his  re- 
bukes to  intimidate  courts.  He  is  to  execute  the 
will  of  the  people  declared  in  constitutional  and 
statutory  forms.  The  arena  for  a  leader  of  the 
whole  people  or  any  party  of  them  is  in  the  Congress 
or  the  forum. 

It  is  not  possible  for  a  President  of  the  United 
States  to  put  his  thousandfold  reenforced  personality 

93 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

into  the  determination  of  causes,  into  investigations 
of  suspected  evils  of  forms  of  business,  and  into  con- 
demnatory utterances  upon  private  affairs  without 
doing  great  injustice,  often  precluding  the  possibility 
of  fair  and  judicial  procedures.  He  is  the  one  man 
of  the  country  who  should  remain  silent  upon  ques- 
tions to  be  adjudicated  by  the  courts — as  much  so 
as  the  Chief  Justice. 

The  change  which  has  taken  our  chief  magis- 
trate into  the  work  of  a  chief  detective  with  gigantic 
bureaus  of  informers  and  a  corps  of  special  inves- 
tigators is  as  amazing  as  it  is  unconstitutional.  We 
cannot  believe  that  it  is  a  change  that  was  contem- 
plated by  the  country's  founders  as  a  possibility  of 
the  presidential  office.  It  is  not  a  change  upward. 
It  is  a  change  downward,  a  degeneracy  undignified, 
and  disturbing  in  the  nature  of  the  case  to  all  in- 
terests that  can  be  brought  into  executive  purview. 
Who  next  and  what  next  is  the  text  of  common 
conversation.  Can  it  be  best  for  the  country?  Is 
this  disquiet  and  unrest  wholesome,  bettering  to  the 
conditions  of  business,  and  contributing  to  the  hap- 
piness and  prosperity  of  the  people? 

Is  there  anything  in  present  conditions  that  have 
not  always  been,  wherever  human  nature  was  in 
control,  to  justify  any  such  degeneracy  of  the  presi- 
dency into  a  detective  agency?  What  a  spectacle 
to  the  nations  of  the  earth!  A  people  who  have 
been  self-governing  by  constitutional  processes,  whose 
credit   has    extended    around   the    earth   with    their 

94 


STRETCHING   THE    CONSTITUTION 

commerce  and  manufacture,  whose  great  corporate 
business  has  been  a  marvel  of  genius,  and  whose  In- 
tegrity has  been  tested  by  financial  credits  in  every 
nation,  whose  aberrations  and  obliquities  in  com- 
parison with  their  general  character  are  as  spots  on 
the  sun  —  this  people  is  being  hunted  along  every 
railway,  into  every  corporation,  over  every  highway 
of  trade  by  their  President.  In  Heaven's  name 
what  a  spectacle  in  free  constitutional  America!  It 
would  disgrace  a  South  American  Republic.  With 
a  people  with  less  sense  of  humor  and  a  people  less 
optimistic  it  would  cause  a  revolution. 

The  whole  thing  is  obnoxious  to  a  democratic 
form  of  government.  And  of  nothing  Is  this  truer 
than  of  the  detective  bureaus  with  which  the  presi- 
dency has  surrounded  itself  until  it  does  the  business 
of  the  country  practically  independent  of  Congress. 

The  disturbing  influence  of  perpetual  agitators  is 
over  the  land.  Organized  bodies  of  men  are  at  work 
with  attorneys  and  stenographers  and  a  corps  of 
special  agents  and  clerks  for  the  express  and  specific 
business  of  finding  odors  and  bringing  them  to  the 
President  to  sample.  And  when  the  President  would 
vindicate  himself  for  a  personal  assault  upon  a  great 
business  of  the  country  he  has  only  to  call  upon  a 
commission  or  a  special  attorney  to  go  out  and  find 
accusing  facts  or  make  charges.  When  he  would 
discredit  the  railways  struggling  with  their  gigantic 
problems,  a  commission  is  called  upon  to  create  a 
sensation  by  the  tale  of  some  rascally  jobbery  alto- 

95 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

gether  exceptional,  If  true.  What  could  be  more 
mischievous? 

The  President,  any  President,  has  only  to  grasp 
one  of  these  "  big  sticks  "  to  menace  any  business 
and  throw  the  country  into  a  panic.  It  is  a  start- 
ling change  that  has  furnished  our  presidency  with 
these  subcabinets  for  the  purpose  of  discovering 
commercial  wickedness — caves  of  Adullam  for  every 
unsuccessful  competitor,  retainers  of  every  political 
brigand  who  makes  his  foray  upon  the  constitutional 
order  of  things  and  rides  into  power  with  a  blazonry 
of  reform. 

It  certainly  ought  not  to  require  much  acumen  for 
one  to  appreciate  the  fact  that  the  clamoring  forces 
have  worked  until  we  have  put  the  government  of 
the  people  out  of  the  hands  of  the  people  and  in- 
trenched it  in  the  hands  of  a  presidency  more  auto- 
cratic and  despotic  than  anything  In  Europe  outside 
of  Russia. 

And  with  these  appalling  changes  have  come  cer- 
tain tyrannical  Influences  which  menace  any  man 
who  ventures  a  protest.  The  citizen  who  remembers 
the  days  of  a  constitutional  presidency,  who  finds 
himself  without  a  party,  who  finds  himself  demo- 
cratic In  a  monarchy,  and  who  dares  to  insist  upon 
return  to  first  principles,  and  the  only  sound  prin- 
ciples. Is  attacked  with  a  venom  of  pretentious 
loyalty  that  places  the  defenders  of  the  Constitution 
and  the  simple  official  life  among  the  enemies  of  the 
country!     The  socialistic  anarchist  Is  rallying  to  the 

96 


STRETCHING   THE    CONSTITUTION 

defense  of  the  changed  form  of  the  presidency  and 
charging  the  old-fashioned  citizen  with  disloyalty. 
The  rioter  who  contended  against  government  by 
injunction  Is  pacified  by  commissions  of  his  own  for 
the  accomplishment  of  his  tyrannical  purposes  in  the 
arbitration  of  labor  and  capital ! 

Again  we  ask  how  far  are  these  changes  of  the 
presidency  going?  It  Is  no  more  unreasonable  to 
suppose  that  they  will  go  on  than  that  they  are  here. 
They  are  here  In  opposition  to  the  spirit  of  the  age. 
They  are  as  undemocratic  as  a  despotism.  They  are 
Illogical.  They  are  the  cerements  of  a  grave  cen- 
turies old.  The  present  methods  of  discrediting  per- 
sons and  business  and  sowing  distrust  throughout  the 
nation  are  musty  with  the  odors  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  A  generation  ago  no  mortal  In  America 
would  have  believed  this  change  to  autocracy  pos- 
sible. Like  every  evil  thing  of  the  kind  It  mas- 
querades under  the  pretense  of  renewing  the  earth 
and  regenerating  mankind.  It  does  some  good 
things  and  thereby  writes  Its  own  Indorsement  and 
pursues  Its  mischievous  business. 

It  will  continue  until  the  people  get  the  full 
measure  of  the  peril  of  this  despotic  change  and  Its 
real  relation  to  their  Interests,  which  It  pretends  to 
safeguard  but  destroys. 

There  can  be  no  certain  values  nor  secure  proper- 
ties, there  can  be  no  prosperous  business  and  bold 
enterprise  In  a  nation  where  governmental  paternalism 
Is  permitted  to  command  special  and  crude  laws  of 

97 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

commerce,  and  menace  with  Investigations  and  prose- 
cutions the  changing  conditions  of  manufacture  and 
trade.  The  creation  by  business  novices  of  laws 
which  cannot  be  applied  to  commerce,  but  which  If 
disobeyed  are  to  be  enforced  by  demagogues  and 
make  our  great  business  men  criminals,  must  termi- 
nate soon  In  either  the  awakening  of  the  people  and 
the  repeal  of  such  laws,  or  the  paralysis  of  business 
now  threatened,  or  the  return  of  a  reign  of  practical 
sound  sense  upon  the  part  of  our  executives.  Values 
hitherto  have  been  down  on  some  secure  and  appre- 
ciable foundation.  Now,  every  day  they  are  blown 
about  by  a  new  story  of  investigation  from  the  White 
House. 

It  was  bad  enough  when  the  counter  reports  of 
bulls  and  bears  in  Wall  Street  moved  stocks  up  and 
down  the  tape.  People  are  not  looking  now  to  Wall 
Street.  What  Is  the  last  Interview  with  the  Presi- 
dent by  one  of  his  commissioners  or  secretaries? 

Railroad  men,  manufacturers,  shippers,  m^er- 
chants,  bankers,  Investors,  all  stand  about  anxiously 
waiting  for  the  last  bulletin  from  the  White  House 
and  inquiring  as  to  which  commission  Is  in  the  field 
to-day ! 

The  enormous  businesses  that  have  been  built  up 
during  the  past  half  century  upon  the  eternal  prin- 
ciples of  commerce  and  that  have  made  the  United 
States  the  richest  and  most  powerful  nation  on  earth 
are  humbly  asking  leave  of  the  political  Caesars  to 
continue  according  to  the  code  of  their   fathers   in 

98 


STRETCHING    THE    CONSTITUTION 

making  their  country  great  in  the  development  of  its 
resources  and  industries. 

And  the  Caesars  are  enthroned  by  the  men  who 
have  created  no  business,  and  by  the  other  men  whose 
doctrine  is  destruction  to  all  forms  of  success,  and  by 
competitors  who  justify  their  failures  by  accusing 
their  successful  rivals. 

The  business  honor  of  our  country  is  marvelous. 
It  is  the  world's  highest  range  of  commercial  in- 
tegrity. But  some  solitary  low  level  of  railway  ma- 
nipulation or  some  careless  small  meat  packer  or  some 
rebate  justified  by  the  practices  of  a  generation  is 
seized  upon  as  the  measure  of  our  honor  and  the  type 
of  our  character. 

How  much  longer  will  the  people  submit  to  this 
degradation?  Is  not  the  time  at  hand  for  a  demand 
that  the  excrescence  shall  be  lopped  off  from  the  pres- 
idency, that  the  changes  which  have  been  taken  on 
without  law,  without  constitutional  or  statutory  right, 
shall  be  dropped  as  unlawful  practices,  and  that 
the  President  shall  return  within  the  limitations  de- 
fined by  the  instrument  which  describes  his  oflice 
and  be  content  with  its  proper  administrative  func- 
tions? 

Is  not  the  time  at  hand  for  the  people  to  return 
to  their  self-respect  and  serve  a  notice  upon  all  po- 
litical aspirants  that  hereafter  the  men  who  serve  this 
land  in  high  stations  must  be  constructive  and  not 
destructive;  that  we  will  tolerate  no  longer  the  Na- 
tion's slanderers,  we  will   submit  no   longer   to  the 

99 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

discredit  of  business  for  demagogic  purposes;  that 
hereafter  the  men  Intrusted  with  political  power  must 
make  and  execute  laws  to  increase  the  mighty  cur- 
rents of  commerce  and  show  themselves  as  great  as 
the  things  they  attempt  to  legislate  and  administer. 
We  want  men  as  big  as  their  office  and  as  big  as  their 
times. 

But  how  shall  we  get  back?  Will  some  one  tell 
us  how  we  are  to  change  back  from  the  changes  that 
the  President  has  introduced  Into  his  office?  It  can- 
not be  that  they  are  to  become  permanent,  that  the 
next  Executive  is  to  give  us  a  new  competitor  for 
original  laurels  and  a  champion  with  loftier  plume  in 
the  tournament  with  corporations.  It  cannot  be  that 
men  hereafter  are  to  qualify  for  the  presidency  by 
their  ability  to  Investigate  business  and  to  agitate  the 
status  of  credits  and  to  overthrow  confidence.  Is  the 
presidency  to  become  the  national  menace  and  is 
the  mightiest  menacer  among  candidates  to  be  made 
the  popular  candidate? 

In  former  years  the  country  had  a  refuge  In  the 
opposite  party.  But  to  those  of  us  who  look  anx- 
iously to  the  only  hope  in  political  change  there  ap- 
pears a  worse  fate.  The  party's  idol  declares  that 
the  issue  of  agitation  belongs  to  him  of  original  right. 
He  nailed  his  flag  to  it  as  a  discoverer.  It  was  torn 
down  and  the  Republican  flag  displaced  it.  It  was 
plainly  stealing  the  land  he  was  about  to  Inherit,  but 
he  accuses  only  of  the  theft  and  complains  that  the 
thieves  have  not  made  more  of  their  stealings.     It 

100 


STRETCHING    THE    CONSTITUTION 

was  his  Issue  and  he  proves  It,  but  enough  has  not 
been  done  with  it. 

It  Is  therefore  useless  to  look  to  the  Democrats 
for  a  change  back  to  the  Constitution,  Indeed,  it 
becomes  a  very  interesting  question  as  to  what  Mr. 
Bryan  would  do  that  President  Roosevelt  has  not 
done.  He  evidently  wishes  It  to  be  understood  that 
he  would  do  more!  Well  may  we  pray:  "Good 
Lord,  deliver  us!  " 

After  his  Inaugural,  four  more  years  of  distrust, 
fear,  and  failure.  Years  In  which  no  man  can  know 
the  values  of  properties  or  assume  the  stability  of  any 
enterprise.  The  evils  of  watered  stocks,  of  unprin- 
cipled stock  manipulators  and  an  occasional  railroad 
wrecker  are  incomparably  less  to  be  dreaded. 

There  must  be  men  enough  in  this  country  who 
revere  the  ancient  landmarks  to  rally  to  a  constitu- 
tional standard.  It  Is  a  duty  of  patriotism  which 
cannot  be  delayed. 

Never  has  there  been  such  broadcast  sowing  of 
socialism  in  our  country's  history.  A  decade  ago  the 
wildest  enthusiasts  of  that  doctrine  could  not  have 
hoped  for  the  tremendous  successes  that  have  come 
to  them  by  the  Indifference  of  the  people  to  the  Con- 
stitution and  by  the  liberty  which  Is  being  taken  with 
their  rights  which  hitherto  had  been  sacredly  guarded 
by  the  laws  of  the  land. 

This  rampant  doctrine  of  an  elastic  Constitution 
now  has  advocates  who  boldly  declare  that  the  Con- 
stitution is  opposed  to  a  democracy.     They  say  that 
8  lOI 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

it  was  born  out  of  restraints  of  liberty  and  limited 
by  provisos  which  were  class  concessions.  They  for- 
get that  these  expired  more  than  a  century  ago  by 
time  limit.  But  this  is  a  congenial  time  for  all 
such  teachings.  They  have  received  the  fullest  en- 
couragement. The  anarchist  has  put  his  rancorous 
voice  aside  and  a  clergyman  has  given  him  the  in- 
dorsement of  righteousness  and  peace ! 

An  easy  way  has  been  found  for  setting  aside  the 
constitutional  rights  of  men  whom  it  is  desired  to 
destroy.  The  old-time  sense  of  solid  security  in  the 
Constitution  has  given  way  to  apprehension  and  dis- 
trust. The  markets  of  the  world  no  longer  trust  it. 
It  is  no  longer  what  saith  the  Constitution,  but  what 
saith  the  President  and  what  saith  the  commissioners. 


CHAPTER    VII 

RIGHTS    OF    CORPORATE    BUSINESS 

GREAT  cooperative  interests  are  not  the  prod- 
uct of  human  avarice  nor  of  grinding  in- 
difference to  popular  rights.  The  very  laws 
of  nature  by  which  we  use  steam  and  lightning  and 
chemical  and  vital  forces  have  made  them.  They  are 
the  result  and  the  movements  of  a  law  with  phenom- 
ena as  unmistakable  as  any  law  in  nature. 

The  application  and  control  of  these  mighty 
forces  over  such  tremendous  areas  and  for  such  amaz- 
ing results  is  impossible  to  the  individual.  He  may 
discover  them,  but  men  of  supreme  executive  ability 
and  capital  must  come  in  and  develop  them.  The 
inventor  is  helpless  until  these  men  come  to  his  relief. 

The  economist  of  a  century  ago  had  no  concep- 
tion of  times  like  these,  and  much  of  his  philosophy 
is  not  applicable  to  such  magnitudes  and  their  forces. 

No  one  can  study  our  country,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  world,  to  every  part  of  which  we  now  are  vitally 
and  intimately  related,  and  not  see  in  vast  corporate 
endeavors  a  simple  and  plain  proportion.  They  be- 
long to  the  logic  of  events.      Consider  our  vast  ter- 

103 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

ritory,  Its  tremendous  resources,  its  natural  obstacles 
to  be  removed,  the  engineering  to  penetrate  mountain 
ranges  and  bridge  impassable  caverns,  the  machinery 
of  fabulous  cost,  the  artisans  and  laborers  massed  In 
single  enterprises  by  tens  of  thousands,  the  executive 
abihty  employed  In  plans  and  their  execution  that 
makes  emperors  and  kings  appear  small  In  compari- 
son, and  It  may  occur  to  you  that  perhaps  we  have 
problems  in  these  things  worthy  of  sober  statesman- 
ship. How  could  we  have  brought  the  iron  from  the 
mountains  of  Pennsylvania,  wrought  Into  the  steel 
of  a  thousand  utilities,  or  the  oil  from  our  valleys,  or 
harvested  the  wheat  and  corn  from  Western  prairies, 
or  put  a  tracery  of  railways  across  the  continent  in 
every  direction,  or  launched  upon  the  seas  steamships, 
one  of  which  costs  millions  of  dollars,  if  men  of 
mighty  executive  ability  had  not  combined  their 
genius  and  their  fortunes  in  tremendous  cooperative 
endeavor? 

When  we  curse  combined  capital,  do  we  remem- 
ber the  fortunes  lost  In  experiments  and  the  millions 
of  people  to  whom  employment  has  been  given  with 
successful  Investments,  the  conditions  of  thrift  that 
have  been  promoted,  the  comforts  and  necessities 
which  have  been  distributed  at  small  cost  among  the 
people,  luxuries  of  the  rich  that  have  been  brought 
to  the  homes  of  the  poor? 

Instead  of  listening  to  the  demagogue,  read  the 
history  of  your  own  times,  contrast  our  country  homes 
with  rural  England  or  rural  America  of  fifty  years 

104 


RIGHTS   OF    CORPORATE    BUSINESS 

ago.  The  poor  man  owes  more  to  the  corporations 
than  to  any  other  commercial  force  for  his  oppor- 
tunity to  work  at  good  wages,  or  to  work  at  all,  for 
that  matter. 

It  is  the  corporation  that  has  assembled  the  ma- 
terial, furnished  the  capital  in  great  banks,  financial 
trusts,  and  projected  enterprises  that  make  the  thrift 
of  the  country  and  give  employment  which  individ- 
uals or  small  companies  could  not  have  done.  The 
corporations  which  we  sometimes  thoughtlessly  curse 
are  the  workingman's  best  friends. 

Let  those  who  hate  corporations  go  back  to  the 
canal  boat,  the  little  railway,  the  stage  coach,  and  a 
dollar  per  day  of  wage. 

The  practical  economics  of  all  this  massed  cap- 
ital managed  by  the  mightiest  combined  executive 
genius  the  world  ever  has  seen  In  their  application  to 
our  homes  and  personal  lives  In  common  commodi- 
ties, presents  a  striking  justification  of  the  present  gen- 
eral order  of  things. 

That  there  are  evils  to  be  guarded  and  evils  to  be 
corrected,  that  there  are  some  Imperfect  adjustments 
that  fail  of  the  largest  results  to  the  greatest  number 
and  that  do  Injustice  to  some  Interests,  no  one  will 
dispute.  But  competition  cannot  be  manufactured 
by  legislation.  Its  limits  cannot  be  defined  as  an  en- 
gineer lays  out  streets  and  highways. 

The  wisdom  that  guides  these  vast  concerns  must 
be  as  great  as  the  age  and  the  corporate  Interests  rep- 
resented.      Our    tremendous    industrial    movements 

105 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

have  grown  faster  than  our  legislative  wisdom.  The 
men  who  are  undertaking  the  regulation  of  these 
mighty  energies,  which  are  comparable  to  the  move- 
ments of  the  planets  and  the  tides  of  the  sea, 
are  making  a  spectacle  of  themselves  such  as  the 
schoolboys  can  find  in  the  coming  in  of  Stephen- 
son's locomotive,  the  telegraph,  and  power  ma- 
chinery. 

There  must  be  statesmanship  of  the  first  magni- 
tude, than  which  none  has  been  greater  than  in  our 
country,  which  shall  address  Itself  to  most  arduous 
study  of  the  most  important  physical  and  commercial 
problems  the  world  ever  has  known. 

Interests  of  such  vast  extent  which  move  by  their, 
momentum  so  irresistibly  through  long-established 
conditions,  in  many  cases  overthrowing  smaller  enter- 
prises with  all  of  the  deep  personal  interest,  as  well 
as  the  commercial  profit  that  attaches  to  them,  are 
sure  to  be  thought  tyrannical,  ruthless,  grasping — 
the  veritable  octopus  or  pitiless  dragon  of  av'arice. 
The  railway  was  oppressive  when  it  set  aside  the  stage 
coach.  But  the  stage  driver  became  the  train  con- 
ductor. 

It  must  be  our  wisdom  to  guide  such  momentum 
with  the  least  harm  in  the  changed  commercial  order 
to  both  the  greater  and  lesser  interests.  It  should 
be  our  first  business  to  come  to  a  just  appreciation  of 
the  place  of  corporations  in  this  country,  their  pro- 
portionate relation  to  the  age,  their  logical  necessity 
to  us,  that  we  may  not  fight  institutions  in  which  the 

1 06 


RIGHTS    OF    CORPORATE    BUSINESS 

material  interests  and  welfare  of  all  of  the  people  are 
invested. 

Surely  It  must  not  be  assumed  that  the  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  men  of  this  country  who  represent  the 
billions  of  investments  and  its  corporate  commerce 
are  traitors  to  mankind,  upon  whom  war  of  extermi- 
nation must  be  made.  They  are  not  buccaneers  and 
marauders. 

And  it  is  a  thing  altogether  perilous  at  a  time  of 
such  disturbed  conditions  with  regard  to  government 
and  property  and  social  state  to  sow  carelessly  to  a 
whirlwind  of  suspicion  and  hate,  the  forming  of 
which  is  already  far  above  the  horizon. 

As  I  have  remarked  upon  the  magnitude  of  a 
time  that  calls  for  cooperative  wisdom  and  power  and 
that  demands  a  square  justice  and  a  confidence  in 
Providence  and  men,  so  I  say  we  must  cherish 
with  the  most  profound  loyalty  those  institutions  by 
which  the  wisdom  of  our  fathers  has  secured  to  us 
the  greatest  nation  on  earth,  as  the  only  instruments 
by  which  so  mighty  a  nation  can  continue  while  time 
lasts. 

If  we  cannot  govern  ourselves  intelligently  by  our 
representatives,  our  government  will  follow  the  slip- 
pery downward  path  of  all  oligarchies.  Men  who 
represent  us  in  the  judiciary  and  in  legislative  halls 
must  be  protected  by  public  sentiment  in  absolute  in- 
dependence of  the  representative  character  which  is 
secured  to  them  by  law,  accountable  to  no  one  except 
those  who  have  sent  them  to  be  their  representatives. 

107 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

And  they  must  be  protected  in  disagreement  some- 
times with  the  Executive  and  those  whom  they  repre- 
sent, as  have  been  some  of  the  notable  men  of  the 
past  and  the  present,  until  such  time  as  they  may 
be  permitted  to  account  to  their  constituents.  A 
thousand  times  better  continue  men  in  office  who  do 
not  represent  you  upon  some  matters  but  who  have 
the  courage  of  their  honest  convictions,  a  courage 
which  compels  them  to  differ  and  so  to  vote,  than  men 
whose  agreement  is  servile  either  to  the  Executive  or 
to  you. 

They  are  the  representatives  of  the  people  and 
not  of  the  Executive,  and  by  such  representatives 
alone  do  the  people  have  a  voice  in  the  government. 
When  senators  and  representatives  receive  orders 
from  the  Executive,  when  appeals  to  popular  passion 
are  made  to  force  them  to  action  to  which  their  sound 
judgment  and  honest  convictions  are  opposed,  the 
government  by  the  people  and  for  the  people  becomes 
a  misnomer  and  a  deception.  In  that  hour  we  are 
a  monarchy  lacking  only  the  name. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  we  are  not  so  dazed  and 
daft  by  an  office  that  has  grown  great  with  our  great- 
ness that  it  may  be  permitted  to  set  aside  courts,  sen- 
ates, and  congresses. 

If  it  be  thought  by  some  of  you  that  conditions 
do  not  justify  our  fears,  I  refer  you  to  the  threatened 
and  actual  fate  of  congressmen  who  have  dared  to 
be  true  and  brave  in  their  representative  character. 
A  partisan  paper  defending  the  coercion  of  the  Sen- 

io8 


RIGHTS    OF    CORPORATE    BUSINESS 

ate  upon  a  certain  measure,  said  recently:  "The 
Senate  on  that  occasion  needed  the  strongest  kind  of 
stimulus  to  cause  it  to  take  favorable  action  upon  the 
rate  bill  and  the  free  alcohol  bill."  Why  should  our 
senators  be  forced  beyond  their  own  convictions  in  a 
given  case? 

A  pressure  was  brought  by  a  message,  the  purpose 
of  which  the  senators  instantly  understood  and  which 
evidently  was  intended  to  appeal  to  long-prepared 
prejudices  of  the  people.  If  we  are  a  Republic,  why 
should  men  of  senatorial  dignity  and  long  experience 
in  both  the  House  and  Senate  be  coerced  by  the  arous- 
ing of  popular  passion,  be  forced  to  action  which 
many  of  them  condemned,  by  throwing  among  them 
the  riotous  shouts  of  unreasoning  hate  and  prejudice? 
This  is  a  most  dangerous  stimulus. 

Is  this  the  method  of  legislation  to  which  this 
great  nation  has  descended?  Is  this  new  way  the 
better  way  to  make  our  laws? 

We  have  drifted  far  from  our  moorings,  so  far 
that  men  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean  are  noting  and 
remarking  the  fact.  The  anchor  chain  has  been  run 
out  dangerously  far.  It  has  not  been  run  out  for 
safety.  It  has  been  allowed  to  slip  carelessly.  It 
must  not  be  put  to  greater  strain. 

The  people  must  awaken  to  the  danger  that 
threatens  representative  government.  Our  courts 
must  be  kept  inviolate.  Our  senators  and  congress- 
men must  be  respected  in  their  representative  char- 
acter  as  embodying   in    themselves   the   people  who 

109 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

alone  have  the  right  to  make  laws  without  let  or 
hindrance,  and  all  men  must  have  the  right  of  trial  by 
jury  and  must  not  be  condemned  upon  ex  parte  state- 
ments of  commissions,  abhorrent  to  every  sense  of  jus- 
tice and  in  violation  of  our  civil  liberties. 

We  need  unshaken  confidence  and  eternal  vigi- 
lance as  never  in  any  crises  through  which  we  have 
passed. 

College  men  must  go  out  into  the  world  to  leaven 
its  passions  with  the  leaven  of  a  thinking  that  is  as 
wide  in  its  generalization  as  it  is  strong  and  clear  in 
its  processes.  Our  peril  is  men  who  attempt  to  hurry 
the  mighty  laws  of  human  progress  by  puerile  med- 
dling, who  seem  to  take  a  rollicking  delight  in  light- 
ing the  match  and  fanning  the  flame  of  a  smoldering 
discontent  and  prejudice. 

It  is  a  peril  unspeakable  to  discredit  the  consti- 
tutional order  of  things  in  a  national  life  of  such 
complex  and  conflicting  elements  as  comprise  ours  in 
this  generation.  We  need,  therefore,  as  never  be- 
fore, men  who  are  conservatives  and  conservators  in 
so  much  that  they  may  have  that  statesman  mind 
which  "  hopeth  all  things "  until  such  time  as  by 
sound  wisdom  and  discretion  they  may  help  to  bring 
to  pass  "  that  which  is  perfect." 

There  can  be  no  greater  honor  and  responsibility 
than  to  be  permitted  to  be  a  participant  in  the  mighty 
work  of  securing  for  our  inheritance  the  greatest 
things  in  their  greatest  efficiency  to  all  citizens  and  the 
assimilation  into  one  mighty  people  of  all  of  the  races 

no 


RIGHTS   OF    CORPORATE    BUSINESS 

now  in  contention  within  our  shores,  people  who  al- 
ready are  in  such  numbers  and  have  taken  to  them- 
selves such  power  and  have  been  put  in  such  inimical 
attitude  toward  our  institutions  and  our  forms  of 
commerce  as  to  be  a  most  serious  menace. 

For  this  reason  we  should  emphasize  as  a  duty 
of  loyalty  those  principles  of  our  government  which 
alone  can  secure  stable  conditions,  and  that  moral 
and  religious  force  by  which  men  may  be  drawn  out 
of  the  quicksands  of  an  anarchism  which  is  taking 
on  its  most  dangerous,  insidious  forms. 

Both  because  of  the  magnitude  of  our  country 
with  the  new  forces  that  have  been  put  into  our 
hands  for  practical  use  which  call  for  new  propor- 
tions and  the  continuation  of  executive  genius  and 
enormous  capital  in  business,  and  because  govern- 
ment by  law  and  not  by  men  is  our  only  safety  in  a 
land  of  such  heterogeneous  elements,  we  demand 
conservative  leadership  and  a  calm  public  spirit. 

Ours  is  a  tremendous  study  of  civic  economics. 
The  new  proportions  have  come  in  with  a  suddenness 
that  has  alarmed  us.  Men  of  the  old  times  of  small 
business  firms,  of  the  stage  coach,  of  the  hand  loom, 
of  the  hand-printing  press,  of  days  before  the  power 
machinery  which  has  revolutionized  the  earth,  are 
living  among  us.  Should  it  be  thought  strange  that 
this  new  order  should  be  feared  and  the  happy  old 
times  be  recalled  as  the  better  way? 

It  has  been  a  short  time  for  readjustment.  This 
mighty  rush  of  invention,  of  new  forces,  of  expanded 

III 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

opportunity,  has  swept  us  off  our  feet.  We  are  pre- 
pared to  be  told  of  dire  and  destructive  things.  It 
is  an  easy  task  to  arouse  the  people  to  the  dan- 
ger of  corporate  endeavor  and  with  a  few  choice 
phrases  of  "  predatory  wealth,"  "  swollen  fortunes," 
"  tainted  money,"  and  "  the  octopus  "  to  prejudice 
the  proportions  of  a  new  age,  the  magnitudes  of 
which  we  have  not  grasped  and  the  processes  of 
which  are  not  generally  appreciated.  It  will  take 
time  for  the  people  to  settle  themselves  into  the  new 
orbit  which  has  been  given  by  Divine  Providence  to 
their  little  planet.  It  will  take  time  to  bring  men  to 
appreciate  the  fact  that  electricity,  steam  in  compound 
forms,  gravitation  applied  to  transit  business,  the  vast 
proportions  of  industries,  the  conquest  of  prairies 
and  mountains  and  seas  must  be  managed  in  different 
proportions  than  wedge  and  windlass,  screw  and 
lever,  hand  forge  and  hand  loom,  and  the  trade  of 
the  corner  grocery  and  the  Industries  of  an  infantile 
time. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  those  minds  which  have 
undertaken  the  regulation  of  this  new  order  of  hu- 
man affairs  In  commerce  and  trade  and  to  preserve  the 
independent  and  Individual  forms  that  are  Inadequate 
and  insufficient  are  the  very  men  who  are  violating 
every  tradition  of  the  country  In  government  and  con- 
tending for  greater  elasticity  In  the  Constitution  with 
an  Impatience  that  cannot  wait  to  submit  amendments 
to  the  people  1 

We  venture  to  say  that  no  greater  violence  has 

112 


RIGHTS    OF    CORPORATE    BUSINESS 

been  done  to  the  old  style  of  business,  to  individual 
competition  by  corporations,  than  is  being  done  by  the 
political  trusts  in  Washington  to  old-time  methods  of 
government  in  liberties  taken  with  the  Constitution, 
the  courts,  and  the  lawmaking  bodies.  And  with 
business  the  processes  are  made  by  laws  of  trade  and 
commerce  and  not  arbitrarily  in  opposition  to  a  fixed 
order  of  things.  It  is  an  expansion  beyond  insuffi- 
cient limitations  by  the  force  of  an  irresistible  energy, 
while  our  governing  instrument  in  clearly  defined 
terms  provides  the  exact  and  unchanging  methods  of 
government  and  the  changes  in  the  same. 

It  is  strange  that  men  who  are  so  righteously 
wrathful  against  mighty  changes  in  business  and  who 
rush  about  with  foaming  mouths  inveighing  against 
"  predatory  wealth  "  are  a  law  unto  themselves  when 
it  comes  to  the  application  of  government,  which  they 
have  adopted  as  a  business,  to  the  new  times.  It 
is  these  men  who  talk  of  stretching  the  Constitution, 
not  amending  it,  but  stretching  it,  because  the  times 
are  too  big  for  it,  who  summon  the  courts  and  the 
whole  prosecuting  machinery  of  the  country  to  con- 
tract business  and  to  make  all  forms  of  it,  beyond  the 
measure  they  set  for  it,  odious!  Men  must  not  take 
liberties  with  business.  That  high  privilege  of  large 
interpretations  is  the  sole  prerogative  of  politicians. 

The  one  thing  that  is  fixed  in  this  country  is  gov- 
ernment. It  is  by  law,  explicit  and  clearly  defined 
and  not  subject  to  discretion  either  in  quantity  or  ap- 
plication.   The  one  thing  that  is  not  fixed  and  limited, 

113 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

that  cannot  be  set  with  bounds  and  held  within  nar- 
row confines,  is  trade,  invention,  discovery,  and  the 
extension  of  commerce. 

The  men  who  are  using  the  machinery  of  gov- 
ernment to  regulate  competition,  to  tell  what  its 
rights  and  proportions  shall  be  and  to  guard  against 
"  the  restraint  of  trade  "  and  to  dissolve  the  com- 
bined endeavors  of  American  citizens  whose  genius 
has  given  our  commerce  Its  mighty  and  amazing  pro- 
portions, will  pass  into  history  with  the  learned  doc- 
tors of  Nuremberg  who  declared  profoundly  that  a 
close  fence  should  be  placed  between  the  railroad 
track  and  the  pedestrians  lest  the  speed  of  a  train  at 
fifteen  miles  an  hour  should  give  them  delirium 
furiosum ! 

To  what  strange  uses  are  we  putting  our  laws 
and  our  executive  prerogatives !  What  a  genius  of 
imagination  that  can  find  any  such  paternalism  in  the 
purposes  of  our  founders !  What  framer  of  the  Con- 
stitution could  have  seen  in  these  distant  times  a 
President  and  his  Cabinet  engaged  In  arranging  the 
conditions  of  business  competition  by  embarrassing 
with  prosecution  and  fines  certain  forms  of  business 
and  threatening  practical  confiscation  by  receivers 
that  other  forms  may  replace  them  and  establish 
scales  of  prices  and  divide  up  the  proceeds  of  their 
independent  business  with  sure  returns  of  profit ! 
Who  in  that  unsophisticated  time  could  have  dreamed 
that  the  production  of  steel  and  oil  and  sugar  would 
have  to  take  a  certain  prescribed  shape  and  the  ability 

114 


RIGHTS    OF    CORPORATE    BUSINESS 

and  business  methods  of  our  citizens  become  subject 
to  statutes  regulating  competition?  There  is  not  the 
remotest  sign  or  syllable  that  anyone  ever  thought  of 
such  interpretations  of  Interstate  commerce  as  have 
been  read  into  the  Constitution  through  the  political 
Influence  of  unsuccessful  competitors  In  the  business 
which  they  have  succeeded  In  making  odious  for  a 
time.  To  regulate  trade  between  the  States  was  to 
facilitate  it  where  it  might  be  obstructed,  to  give  it 
equal  facility  In  all  of  the  States,  to  take  from  It  any 
embarrassment  such  as  had  been  imposed  in  some  of 
the  States,  as  between  New  York  and  New  Jersey, 
and  to  give  trade  and  commerce  the  right  of  way 
throughout  the  entire  Union. 

Men  are  being  prosecuted  to-day  under  an  act 
that  is  opposed  to  progress  and  that  will  so  appear 
if  our  mighty  freedom  ever  emerges  froiji  under  the 
exigencies  of  politics;  if  It  Is  to  stand  under  the 
Magna  Charta  of  the  rights  of  men. 

What  is  left  of  our  boasted  freedom  if  the  laws 
are  to  be  construed  so  that  a  President  through  his 
various  commissions  can  take  charge  of  any  business 
that  may  strike  his  fancy  and  change  its  values  at  his 
caprice  and  supersede  It  with  some  other  business  that 
may  receive  his  favor — wood  alcohol,  for  instance, 
In  place  of  kerosene  ! 

Plainly  our  old  constitutional  laws  were  made  to 
harmonize  with  these  great  times  and  to  leave  the 
way  open  for  the  mightiest  endeavor.  They  were 
framed  by  a  wisdom  that  was  nearer  prescient  than 

115 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

any  human  wisdom  this  world  has  known,  and  we 
have  a  right  to  insist  that  they  be  executed  with  the 
same  large  and  generous  wisdom,  that  they  be  not 
reduced  to  petty,  nagging,  poHtical  instruments,  mak- 
ing contemptible  the  mightiest  nation  created  by 
men. 

There  can  be  no  large  business  under  a  narrow 
and  paternal  interpretation  of  the  commercial  rights 
of  men  and  the  enactment  of  meddlesome  laws  by 
men  of  small  commercial  vision  and  less  practical  ex- 
perience. How  is  it  possible  for  men  to  have  con- 
fidence in  any  investments  under  such  conditions? 

It  becomes  a  question  as  to  what  size  of  com- 
mercial enterprise  will  receive  approval  at  Washing- 
ton, what  standard  measurement  of  capital  and  coop- 
erative enterprise  is  to  be  issued  by  the  respective 
commissions,  what  guarantee  can  be  secured  by 
patents  that  men  will  be  permitted  to  use  all  of  their 
ability  and  resources,  what  assurance  that  they  will 
not  become  too  big  for  some  law,  that  some  competi- 
tion may  trade  through  Congress  or  some  commission 
may  be  called  upon  to  suppress  by  an  autocratic  Presi- 
dent. 

It  is  plain  enough  that  laws  must  be  as  large 
as  business  and  executed  by  a  large  common  sense  if 
we  are  to  go  on  with  the  proportions  of  these  mighty 
times. 

It  is  useless  to  have  the  forces,  the  inventions,  the 
business  genius,  the  internal  resources,  if  there  is  to 
be  thrown  across  them  the  obstruction  of  the  preju- 

n6 


RIGHTS    OF    CORPORATE    BUSINESS 

dices  and  timidity  of  a  hundred  years  ago  or  the 
machinations  of  legislators  who  are  in  Congress  be- 
cause too  small  for  supreme  success  in  the  commercial 
world  which  they  fail  to  appreciate  and  adequately 
interpret. 

Right  of  way  for  the  largest  things  by  the  largest 
legislation  must  be  our  motto.  We  are  not  called 
upon  to  slow  down  to  the  man  who  cannot  keep  up. 
It  is  a  prodigious  blunder  to  attempt  by  legislation 
to  protect  small  forms  of  business.  We  do  not  want 
to  make  small  business  nor  small  men.  Every  man 
must  take  his  chance  and  make  his  place. 

To  protect  against  "  restraint  of  trade  "  sounds 
just  but  it  is  the  height  of  folly,  for  it  proposes  to  leg- 
islate against  the  restraint  of  trade  that  is  serving  the 
country  with  the  mightiest  successes  that  the  country 
has  known — small  trade  is  at  the  demand  of  the 
trader  and  not  of  the  people.  It  is  impossible  to 
guard  against  the  restraint  of  trade. 

The  success  of  trade  in  one  shape  will  restrain 
or  interfere  with  the  same  trade  in  another.  That  is 
what  enterprise  is  constantly  doing.  Competition 
means  the  success  of  one  and  the  failure  of  another. 

It  would  have  been  as  foolish  to  make  laws  to 
slow  down  the  locomotive  in  order  to  guard  against 
the  restraint  of  the  stage  coach  as  it  is  to  obstruct  the 
corporation  with  laws  and  commissions  to  enable 
weaker  men  and  small  capital  to  carry  on  inefficiently 
the  same  business. 

We  predict  that  every  law  that  has  for  its  pur- 
9  117 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

pose  the  restraint  of  a  large  business  to  promote  a 
small  one  will  be  repealed  at  no  distant  day  by  a 
wisdom  that  will  laugh  at  the  folly  of  our  petty 
interference  with  the  mighty  laws  of  human  prog- 
ress which  we  attempted  to  substitute  with  our 
*'  stretched  "  Constitution  and  our  paternal  statutes. 

Men  will  look  at  the  present  craze  to  regulate 
trade,  to  put  commerce  and  manufacture  into  the  anti- 
quated boundaries  of  a  time  that  is  past,  to  make  the 
scale  of  activities  for  coming  ages,  with  the  curiosity 
with  which  they  look  back  upon  the  *'  populism,"  the 
"  greenbackism,"  and  the  "  free  silverism  "  which  in 
their  turn  aroused  them  to  such  wild  enthusiasm  and 
threatened  the  stable  courses  of  our  country  in  gov- 
ernment and  business  Integrity, 

The  sooner  we  appreciate  the  magnitude  of  the 
age,  the  less  mischief  we  shall  work  to  our  country. 
Our  mighty  prosperity  has  been  after  the  order  that 
we  now  seek  to  embarrass  and  restrain.  Its  momen- 
tum is  so  mighty  that  it  goes  on  far,  after  the  ob- 
structions have  been  thrown  upon  the  track.  But  the 
very  force  of  its  momentum  is  the  prime  element  of 
danger.  What  is  stopped  with  difficulty  is  started 
with  difficulty.  Confidence  can  be  destroyed  much 
sooner  than  it  can  be  restored. 

We  aim  at  the  rich  and  the  powerful.  The 
American  people  are  thrifty.  They  put  their  money 
where  the  rich  put  theirs.  The  six  billions  of  loss  in 
a  year  of  insane  agitation  is  not  the  property  of 
"  predatory  wealth."     The  man  of  a  share  or  two, 

ii8 


RIGHTS   OF    CORPORATE    BUSINESS 

or  five  or  ten  shares  of  stock  In  railways,  oil,  steel, 
copper,  etc.,  is  numbered  by  the  hundred  thousand. 
No  great  trade  or  manufacture  of  our  utilities 
can  be  legislated  or  prosecuted  into  embarrassment 
and  loss  without  suffering  to  the  American  people, 
for  the  people  are  Investors.  They  have  put  their 
faith  in  the  large  things  of  their  times  and  it  is  their 
property  that  is  being  attacked  by  the  present  fanati- 
cal cry  against  the  corporation. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE    CORPORATIONS 

WE  are  in  an  age  that  compels  the  combina- 
tion of  mighty  men  with  vast  resources. 
The  individual  in  physical  achievement, 
except  in  some  solitary  places  and  exceptionally  small 
enterprises,  passed  the  zenith  of  his  independent  en- 
deavor a  half  century  ago.  To  try  to  recover  him  and 
to  restore  him  to  his  place,  as  in  the  days  of  small 
things,  is  to  make  a  fatal  mistake  in  reading  the  signs 
of  the  times. 

The  forces  of  to-day  are  too  mighty  to  be 
directed  by  the  prescience  of  one  man — the  forces 
with  which  God  built  the  universe  have  been  put  into 
the  hands  of  men. 

It  requires  only  the  most  superficial  study  to  con- 
vince one  that  the  individual  is  not  equal  to  the  mighty 
enterprises  of  an  age  like  this,  and  that  he  must  join 
with  other  individuals  and  form  with  them  a  great 
company  or  corporation  in  order  to  secure  sufficient 
capital  and  ability  for  the  purposes  of  our  railroads, 
steamships,  trolley  lines,  telegraphs,  and  telephones 
and  other  common  utilities. 

120 


THE    CORPORATIONS 

The  extent  of  our  country,  the  new  forces  that 
have  come  to  the  hand  of  man,  the  Increased  and 
multiplied  modes  of  life  have  created  conditions  in 
business  which  demand  massed  capital  and  men  of 
the  mightiest  administrative  genius  the  world  ever 
has  known.  And  the  corporations  of  our  railways, 
steam  and  electric  transit,  of  oil  and  sugar,  of  steel 
and  other  great  manufacturers  are  as  logical  and  pro- 
portionate in  an  age  like  this  as  were  the  mill,  and 
the  single  store  that  monopolized  the  business  of 
its  village  in  the  times  of  our  grandfathers.  Corpora- 
tions not  only  belong  here  but  we  cannot  get  along 
without  them.  We  curse  the  railways,  but  if  trains 
are  run  indifferently  we  set  up  a  great  outcry  which 
proclaims  our  dependence.  We  have  no  way  and 
there  Is  no  way  that  we  can  invent  except  the  cor- 
poration by  which  we  can  get  promptly  and  at  so 
small  a  price  our  flour,  our  coal,  our  kerosene,  our 
sugar,  and  a  thousand  other  necessities  of  life.  No 
individual  could  bring  them  to  us.  If  he  could,  the 
price  would  be  multiplied  from  ten  to  one  hundred 
times.  You  may  as  well  attempt  to  displace  the  sun 
with  a  tallow  dip  as  to  substitute  for  these  gigantic 
commercial  forces  the  puny  methods  of  a  time  when 
financial  man  was  little  and  the  wants  of  the  people 
were  few  and  simple. 

When  man  saw  his  opportunity,  when  he  discov- 
ered the  resources  of  his  earth,  when  he  appreciated 
the  forces  at  hand,  he  began  to  plan  large  things  and 
seek  for  adequate  agencies  and  power,  and  what  he 

121 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

could  not  do  alone  he  sought  to  do  by  cooperation, 
under  a  law  of  necessity  as  plain  and  practicable  and 
legitimate  as  the  law  of  gravitation. 

And  that  is  all  there  is  to  a  corporation.  It  is  a 
combination  of  men  who  are  doing  what  a  man  can- 
not do  alone.  No  man  ever  has  been  rich  enough  or 
great  enough  or  could  divide  himself  into  a  sufficient 
number  of  executive  parts  to  build  and  manage  the 
Pennsylvania  Railway  or  the  New  York  Central  Sys- 
tem, but  a  hundred  men  organized  by  law  and  pro- 
tected by  charter  could  do  it,  and  that  is  a  corpora- 
tion. It  is  a  body  of  men  acting  under  the  law  as  a 
person,  doing  things  which  a  person  cannot  do.  It  is 
only  a  person  combining  and  consolidating  the  wis- 
dom and  strength  and  efficient  means  of  many  indi- 
viduals, and  in  nearly  all  cases  of  unusual  individuals 
in  enterprise  and  ability. 

Such  a  corporation  will  have  the  characteristics 
of  a  person.  It  will  not  be  strange  if  it  makes  a  per- 
son's mistakes,  if  it  becomes  selfish  and  grasping,  if 
sometimes  it  must  be  restrained  by  law  as  individuals 
are.  But  it  is  not  an  octopus  nor  a  monster.  It  is 
not  necessarily  a  criminal,  nor  does  it  reckon  as  an 
asset  its  power  to  grind  the  poor.  All  of  that  talk 
is  the  cheapest  demagogy. 

Many  of  these  corporations  have  made  vast 
outlays  and  have  enormous  standing  or  permanent 
charges  and  the  returns  are  slow  often,  and  there 
are  periods  of  accident  and  loss  and  mistakes  of  man- 
agement, and  the  results  are  unfortunate  to  the  cor- 

122 


THE    CORPORATIONS 

porate  body  and  to  those  employed  by  it.  There  is 
sometimes  inefficiency  in  executive  control  and  the 
public  suffers  for  a  time.  But  as  the  life  of  a  corpo- 
ration as  well  as  its  profits  depends  upon  the  service 
of  the  people,  these  things  are  largely  self-corrective. 

That  the  corporation  has  been  another  name  for 
gambling  manipulations  in  some  instances  no  one  de- 
nies. But  the  great  industries,  the  mighty  utilities 
have  too  much  invested  in  the  confidence  of  the  peo- 
ple and  the  sound  development  of  their  properties  to 
throw  them  into  a  gambling  pool.  When  this  is  done 
it  is  generally  discovered,  and  the  confidence  of  the 
people,  their  most  valuable  asset,  is  forfeited. 

Upon  these  exceptional  instances  and  the  misap- 
prehension by  the  people  of  the  principles  and  prac- 
tical workings  of  corporate  business  and  upon  the 
insistent  antagonism  of  corporation  competitors  is 
based  the  prejudice  of  the  present  time. 

Reckless  charges  are  brought  against  corporations 
and  trust  methods  of  business  without  rhyme  or  rea- 
son. Recently  an  honorable  college  president,  at  the 
head  of  one  of  our  best-known  institutions,  declared 
under  the  excitement  of  Fourth  of  July  oratory  that 
we  should  send  some  of  the  corporation  managers  to 
prison,  a  thought  echoed  by  the  Attorney  General. 
It  is  reasonable  to  assume  that  a  man  of  such  stable 
thinking  and  with  a  reputation  for  sober  speaking 
to  maintain  must  be  able  to  name  the  offenders.  Has 
anyone  been  convicted  who  is  at  liberty?  Are  the 
cases  of  so  pronounced  a  character,  and  are  they  so 

123 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

many  that  such  a  general  remark  will  stand  without 
specifications?  Who  are  the  men?  Will  the  honor- 
able college  president  name  one  of  them?  Such  talk 
is  worse  than  foolish  if  he  cannot.  And  he  cannot 
name  a  corporation  board  nor  a  member  of  such  a 
board  who  under  the  law  should  be  in  prison.  We 
do  not  send  men  to  prison  justly  upon  hate  and  preju- 
dice created  by  frenzied  magazines  and  a  sensational 
yellow  press.  That  overheated  Fourth  of  July  ora- 
tory was  of  a  piece  with  the  ranting  against  capital 
that  has  become  so  popular  among  the  unthinking, 
and  is  astonishing  from  a  man  in  such  a  position, 
who  ought  to  understand  the  incendiary  effect  of 
such  a  remark  among  the  dangerous  elements  of  the 
time. 

It,  however,  emphasizes  the  fact  that  many  of  the 
people  have  gone  daft  upon  the  subject  of  corpora- 
tions, and  the  word  has  been  adopted  as  a  synonym 
of  everything  that  is  bad,  wicked,  and  oppressive. 

The  politician  uses  it  in  his  canvass  and  is  ap- 
plauded, the  unsuccessful  manufacturer  explains  his 
failure  by  it,  the  farmer  who  gets  less  for  products 
and  pays  more  for  groceries  than  he  thinks  equable 
curses  it,  the  laborer  who  compares  his  wages  with 
dividends  hates  it,  the  newspaper  following  the  drift 
of  discontent  lampoons  it,  human  nature,  always  swift 
to  explain  its  failures,  to  adjust  its  accounts  and  secure 
comparative  credits,  when  it  can  condemn  nothing  else 
thanks  God  that  it  is  not  like  the  corporation.  We 
must  have  something  to  curse.     That  is  an  essential 

124 


THE    CORPORATIONS 

characteristic  of  mankind.  And  there  seems  nothing 
quite  so  convenient  for  that  purpose  as  the  corpora- 
tion. It  is  a  rich  field  for  the  pharisaical  casuist.  It 
is  not  likely  to  speak  for  itself;  there  is  so  much  in 
it  that  is  mystical  to  the  common  mind;  it  does  do 
things  so  out  of  the  usual  experiences  of  men;  it  is 
so  indifferent  to  attacks  by  inferior  minds  that  it  af- 
fords a  most  magnificent  opportunity  for  men  of 
selfish  interest  to  work  their  purpose. 

The  corporation  is  of  such  magnitude  and  its 
processes  are  of  such  a  gigantic  character  and  it  is 
so  new  and  with  such  startling  possibilities  that  legis- 
lators and  executives  are  facile  in  their  blunders  of 
law  and  administration  in  their  attempts  to  regulate 
it.  It  is  a  manifestation  of  the  proportions  of  our 
age  that  has  grown  great  faster  than  the  men  who 
assume  the  responsibility  of  guiding  it.  This  has 
given  rise  to  confused  legislation  and  a  great  babel 
of  tongues.  It  is  simply  too  great  for  us.  We  need 
to  keep  quiet  and  grow  up  to  our  age  and  to  the 
ability  to  comprehend  the  new  order  of  things  in 
commerce  and  manufacture. 

In  nothing  is  this  seen  more  clearly  than  in  the 
Sherman  Act,  which  was  harmless  as  a  mere  expres- 
sion while  it  slept  in  "  innocuous  desuetude  "  but 
which  in  impulsive  and  rash  hands  is  working  incal- 
culable mischief;  a  law  that  was  promulgated  by  a 
man  absolutely  without  economic  instinct,  knowledge, 
genius,  or  experience,  who  threw  at  a  venture  a  stick 
of  dynamite,  the  nature  of  which  he  did  not  know, 

125 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

Into  the  crowded  industries  of  an  age  which  he  could 
not  see;  a  law  which  if  enforced  literally  and  impar- 
tially would  stop  every  wheel  and  silence  every  ma- 
chine and  ruin  every  form  of  corporate  business  in 
the  land. 

The  fact  of  our  imbecility  is  illustrated  still  further 
by  the  helplessness  with  which  we  contemplate  this 
mischievous  law  and  leave  it  in  the  hands  of  dema- 
gogues to  work  their  schemes  at  the  expense  of  the 
country's  prosperity.  We  have  not  the  courage  to 
set  it  aside.  We  think  that  something  is  required, 
we  do  not  know  why  or  for  what,  nor  do  we  know 
what  it  is,  and  so  we  leave  a  law  among  our 
statutes  to  be  a  disturbing  element  according  to  the 
wisdom  and  folly  of  succeeding  administrations.  It 
has  lasted  so  long  because,  with  men  of  the  broad 
statesmanship  of  Harrison,  Cleveland,  and  Mc- 
Kinley,  it  was  not  permitted  to  do  any  serious 
harm. 

Now  seeing  what  it  can  do  when  used  carelessly 
and  arbitrarily  and  strenuously  we  should  get  rid  of 
it.  The  next  session  of  Congress  should  repeal  it  and 
send  home  the  commissions  it  has  created  that  the 
business  of  the  country  may  resume  its  progress  over 
those  highways  of  sound  economics  which  commerce 
makes  for  itself  in  all  ages. 

The  special  laws  made  by  men  who  are  mere 
political  tinkers,  men  who  have  had  absolutely  no 
training  in  the  mighty  movements  of  corporate  com- 
merce, who  are  attempting  to  apply  the  inadequate 

126 


THE    CORPORATIONS 

economics  of  past  and  Infantile  centuries  to  these  tre- 
mendous times — these  laws  painfully  born  out  of 
much  wrangling  and  voluble  discussions  should  no 
longer  stand  to  disgrace  the  age  in  coming  times  when 
men   shall  have  become   full  grown   again. 

And  the  common  law,  those  old  foundations, 
those  plain  and  simple  enactments  which  embody  a 
prescient  judicial  wisdom  that  anticipated  this  age, 
will  leave  our  land  free  to  go  on  to  the  fulfillment 
of  its  magnificently  incomparable  commercial  su- 
premacy. 

The  assumption  that  we  could  not  be  trusted  to 
obey  the  laws  which  are  inherent  in  competitive  trade 
and  work  safely  under  the  natural  guidings  of  such 
forces  is  a  mistaken  one.  There  is  no  safety  in  any 
other  way.  Mischief,  and  mischief  only,  must  come 
out  of  meddling  regulation.  The  government  can- 
not do  the  private  business  of  the  country  and  it 
cannot  successfully  regulate  It  beyond  the  state- 
ment of  those  broad  principles  set  forth  in  the 
Constitution  and  by  the  common-sense  use  of  the 
common  law. 

Not  one  of  our  recent  regulating  statutes  can  be 
safely  applied,  not  one  that  has  been  attempted  has 
accomplished  anything  constructive.  For  the  most 
part  they  have  been  a  dead  letter  because  impracti- 
cable. Some  of  our  soundest  economists  declare 
that  "  they  have  been  productive  of  the  very  evil  of 
unjust  discrimination  which  it  was  intended  to  pre- 
vent." 

127 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

The  Hon.  Martin  A.  Knapp,  Chairman  of  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  speaking  upon 
one  of  the  proposed  laws  for  regulation  that  require 
publicity  of  capitalization,  etc.,  said:  "If  then  it  is 
for  the  public  interest  to  keep  up  competition,  if  the 
general  welfare  will  be  conserved  by  its  active  opera- 
tion, I  query  whether  the  proposed  legislation  will 
not  enfeeble  the  very  principle  to  which  it  is  desired 
to  give  new  life  and  vigor.  ...  So  far  from  accom- 
plishing the  purpose  expected,  in  this  regard,  its 
practical  tendency  in  my  judgment  would  be  in  the 
contrary  direction.  Just  as  the  Sherman  anti-trust 
law  which  is  based  upon  an  economic  fallacy  has  in- 
directly aided  the  very  results  it  was  designed  to 
prevent." 

And  such  must  be  the  results  of  laws  promulgated 
by  men  of  partial  and  impracticable  knowledge  in 
such  matters.  A  steamship  cannot  be  navigated  by  a 
shore  captain. 

We  must  leave  the  construction  and  management 
of  corporations  where  we  have  left  individual  en- 
deavor and  plain  partnerships.  Our  notion  about 
restraint  of  trade  and  all  of  that  is  puerile.  All  com- 
petition is  restraint  of  the  other  man's  trade.  The 
people  cannot  be  oppressed  without  ruin  to  the  op- 
pressor. The  happiness  of  the  people,  their  pros- 
perity, the  cheerful  use  of  the  manufacturer's  articles 
Is  an  asset  of  a  money  value.  Good  will  Is  bought 
and  sold  in  the  market. 

Must  we  assume  that  men  of  the  corporations  are 
128 


THE    CORPORATIONS 

brigands  and  highwaymen?  Is  that  what  we  mean 
by  "  predatory  wealth  "  ?  These  men  are  American 
citizens  of  common  intelligence,  evidently  more  in- 
telligent than  the  men  who  use  such  language.  They 
have  their  homes  here,  their  children  are  growing  up 
among  us,  their  investments  for  them  are  in  values 
which  they  are  seeking  to  make  permanent.  They 
have  as  much  at  stake  as  their  neighbors  have.  They 
seem  to  be  as  loyal  and  devoted  citizens  as  their  ac- 
cusers. Their  public  spirit  is  proverbial.  To  listen 
to  those  who  deride  and  traduce  them  one  would 
get  the  impression  that  to  incorporate  men  in 
business  is  to  make  them  villains.  The  independ- 
ent are  the  good  citizens.  Sad  if  it  is  so,  for  the 
corporations  are  doing  about  seventy  per  cent  of 
the  business  of  the  country.  Fortunately,  however, 
business  is  not  seventy  per  cent  di,shonest  and 
fraudulent. 

What  is  the  crime  of  the  corporation  and  the 
iniquity  of  the  trust?  It  found  little  enterprises 
struggling  with  mighty  problems.  It  put  them  to- 
gether and  made  them  when  consolidated  as  great  as 
their  problems.  It  found  scattered  capital  and 
ability  working  feebly  at  the  task  of  developing  in- 
dustries and  conquering  this  continent.  It  united 
capital  and  men  and  astonished  the  world  with  the 
results  of  the  United  States  Steel  and  the  Standard 
Oil  and  other  mighty  developments.  It  put  feeble 
railroads  together,  a  half  dozen  of  them,  and  created 
great  trunk  lines.     It  alone  and  nothing  else  is  to  be 

129 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

credited  with  the  creation  of  our  new  world  of  in- 
dustries. 

It  has  decreased  consistently  and  persistently  the 
price  of  commodities  while  the  individual  has  in- 
creased them. 

The  late  F.  B.  Thurber,  in  his  "  Basic  Facts," 
published  by  the  United  States  Export  Association, 
which  he  kindly  sent  me,  says:  "As  a  rule  the  so- 
called  '  Trusts  '  tend  toward  economy  in  production 
and  distribution,  improved  quality  and  lower  prices 
for  consumers  and  increased  employment  and  better 
wages  for  labor.  That  while  there  may  be  excep- 
tions to  this  rule  they  are  always  temporary  and  in 
the  end  it  prevails." 

He  makes  this  further  statement  which  he  follows 
with  indisputable  comparative  tables :  "  There  is  a 
widespread  impression,  largely  caused  by  sensational 
journalism  and  sensational  politics,  that  Trusts  result 
in  unreasonable  prices  through  which  the  many  are 
taxed  for  the  few,  and  it  may  be  interesting  to  in- 
quire how  far  this  impression  is  confirmed  by  the 
facts — not  single  and  sporadic  facts  but  facts  which 
cover  a  sufficient  time  and  a  sufficient  field  to  indicate 
the  general  tendency." 

I  use  two  of  these  several  tables,  all  of  which 
tell  the  same  story. 

"  The  first  great  organization  of  industry  in  the 
United  States  was  the  consolidation  of  railway  lines, 
and  its  effect  upon  the  prices  of  transportation  is 
shown  in  the  following  table : 

130 


THE    CORPORATIONS 


Average  Receipts  per  Ton  per  Mile  of  Leading  Railroads 
IN  1870,  1880,  1890,  1902  AND  1904  Inclusive 


Railway  Lines 

1870 

1880 

1890 

1902 

1904 

Lines  East  of  Chicago 

West  and  Northwest  Lines.  . 
Southwest  Lines 

1. 61 

2.61 
2.95 
2-39 
450 

0.87 
1.44 
1.65 
1. 16 
2.21 

0.63 
1 .00 
1 .11 
0.80 
1.50 

0.60 
0.85 
0.89 
0.64 
1.03 

0.61 
0.92 
0.94 
0.66 

Southern  Lines 

Transcontinental  Lines 

0.99 

Average 

1.99 

1. 17 

0.91 

0.75 

0.77 

"  This  result  has  been  obtained  largely  through 
combinations  and  consolidations,  which,  contrary  to 
the  impression  generally  entertained,  have  not  re- 
sulted In  abolishing  competition,  but  rather  in  econ- 
omies of  operation  and  improvement  in  service, 
accompanied  by  a  steady  reduction  in  rjites,  with  but 
few  exceptions,  which  prove  the  rule.  During  recent 
years  rates  have  slightly  advanced  owing  to  a  much 
greater  advance  in  labor  and  materials.  Railway 
freight  rates  in  the  United  States  are,  however,  less 
than  one-half  those  of  other  principal  countries.  Our 
railways  carry  our  chief  products  one  thousand  miles 
to  our  seaboard  for  less  than  the  railroads  of  other 
countries  charge  for  carrying  these  products  two  hun- 
dred miles  inland  from  the  seacoast  after  they  have 
crossed  the  ocean. 

*'  Passenger  rates  have  not  declined  as  largely  as 
freight  rates,  but  there  has  been  a  material  decline 
in  passenger  rates  also  in  the  period  covered  by  the 

131 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

above  statistics,  while  the  quahty  of  the  service  has 
been  greatly  improved,  with  a  corresponding  increase 
in  its  cost  to  the  railways. 

"  The  railroad  of  twenty  years  ago,  with  its  equip- 
ment, would  not  be  tolerated  to-day.  How  many  of 
us  appreciate  the  privilege  of  stepping  into  a  palace 
on  wheels  and  being  hurled  through  space  at  the 
rate  of  forty  or  fifty  miles  an  hour,  with  as  much 
safety  as  if  we  sat  in  our  drawing-rooms  or  were 
sleeping  in  our  beds  at  home? 

"  The  next  great  '  Trust '  was  the  Standard  Oil 
Company,  and  its  influence  on  prices  is  evidenced  by 
the  following  export  prices  per  gallon : 


Year 

1871. 

1872. 

1873- 
1874. 
1875. 
1876. 
1877. 
1878. 
1879. 
1880. 
1881. 
1882. 


Cents 

Year 

25.7 

1883 

24.9 

1884 

23 -5 

1885 

18. s 

1886 

.14.1 

1887 

.14.0 

1888 

.21.1 

1889 

.14.4 

1890 

.10.8 

1891 

.  8.6 

1892 

.10.3 
.  9.1 

1893 
1894 

Cents 


Year 
1895. 
1896. 
1897. 
1898. 
1899. 
1900. 
190I. 
1902. 
1903. 
1904. 
1905. 


Cents 

4-9 
6.8 

6.3 

5-7 

56 

7-8 

6.06 

6.03 

6.07 

7.08 

6.08 


"  This  great  decline  in  the  price  of  oil  is  at- 
tributable to  the  increase  in  production,  but  more 
largely  to  improvements  in  manufacture  and  trans- 
portation, which  were  only  attainable  through  the 
aggregation  of  capital  and  brains  in  this  industry. 

132 


THE    CORPORATIONS 

Refined  oil  Is  now  delivered  to  consumers  in  the 
United  States  by  Standard  Oil  tank  wagons  at  from 
fifteen  to  twenty  cents  per  gallon,  or  about  the  cost 
of  mineral  water," 

Corporations  have  made  a  thousand  things  com- 
mon blessings  which  otherwise  would  have  remained 
unknown  to  the  world.  They  are  the  workingman's 
greatest  friend,  giving  him  better  wages  and  a 
steadier  and  surer  pay  than  any  other  employment 
ever  has  done.  They  have  established  for  him  a 
grade  of  promotion  which  encourages  skill  and  faith- 
fulness by  sure  reward. 

The  corporation  has  multiplied  the  production  of 
the  useful  arts  and  transformed  the  homes  and  mode 
of  life  of  the  people  from  the  spare  and  meager  com* 
forts  of  peasants  and  serfs  to  the  abodes  of  a  digni- 
fied and  powerful  citizenship  filled  with  the  abun- 
dance of  the  gifts  of  the  arts  and  sciences  and  full 
of  self-reliance  and  worthy  ambition. 

The  man  who  talks  about  the  corporation  grind- 
ing the  poor  is  blind  and  cannot  discern  the  times 
or  he  resorts  to  a  demagogy  too  silly  to  deceive  an 
intelligent  people. 

It  Is  the  corporation  business  that  has  developed 
the  resources  of  our  country  and  for  which  further 
development  waits.  It  is  the  corporation  that  is 
manufacturing  the  mighty  machinery  and  applying 
the  power  that  Is  giving  this  age  its  tremendous  com- 
mercial proportions. 

The  Hon.  Carroll  D.  Wright  tells  us  In  his  pub- 
10  133 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

lished  investigations:  "  A  thousand  paper  bags  could 
formerly  be  made  by  hand  in  six  hours  and  thirty 
minutes:  they  are  now  made  in  forty  minutes  with 
the  aid  of  a  machine.  To  rule  ten  reams  of  paper 
on  both  sides  by  hand  required  4,800  hours;  with  a 
ruling  machine  the  work  is  done  in  two  hours  and 
thirty  minutes  of  one  man's  time.  In  shelling  corn 
by  hand  sixty-six  hours  and  forty  minutes  would  be 
required  to  shell  a  quantity  which  can  be  handled  by 
a  machine  in  thirty-six  minutes.  A  mowing  machine 
cuts  seven  times  as  much  grass  per  hour  as  one  man 
can  cut  with  a  scythe.  These  examples  could  be  ex- 
tended Indefinitely,  but  a  more  forceful  illustration 
will  be  found  by  considering  the  total  horse  power 
applied  to  machines  in  this  country  and  calculating 
how  many  men  It  would  require  to  do  the  same  work. 

*'  One  horse  power  is  equivalent  to  the  power  of 
six  men.  Thus  if  the  work  of  63,48 1  men  in  the  flour 
mills  of  the  United  States  Is  supplemented  by  the  use 
of  752,365  horse  power,  the  power  is  equivalent  to 
the  work  of  4,514,190  additional  men. 

"  A  still  more  striking  illustration  Is  found  in  our 
transportation  system.  In  1890  there  were  over  30,- 
000  locomotives  in  this  country.  It  would  take 
57,940,320  horses  to  do  this  work  or  347,425,920 
men.  In  countries  like  China  nearly  all  the  work  of 
transportation  Is  actually  done  by  man  power,  and 
no  further  explanation  of  the  economic  difference  be- 
tween Asia  and  America  Is  required. 

"  By  the  use  of  steam  we  are  evoking  aid  from 
134 


THE    CORPORATIONS 

the  heat  stored  up  in  our  coal  beds  equivalent  to  the 
working  efficiency  of  the  population  of  the  whole 
earth,  while  the  Chinaman  lets  his  coal  lie  under- 
ground, packs  his  load  on  his  back,  and  does  his  man- 
ufacturing largely  by  hand."  But  then  he  has  no 
monster  octopus  to  "  suck  the  last  penny  from  the 
poor  and  stifle  competition  and  that  compromises 
conscience  by  endowing  colleges  of  questionable 
moral  worth  "  !  Would  the  author  of  this  tear- 
stained  sentence  prefer  to  live  in  China ! 

If  there  is  anything  in  which  we  have  shown  the 
power  of  our  civilization  it  is  in  the  massing  of  cap- 
ital in  the  hands  of  consummate  geniuses  of  manufac- 
ture and  trade  by  which  the  earth  has  yielded  up  her 
infinite  treasures  and  handed  over  for  our  practical 
utilities  the  forces  with  which  God  built  the  universe. 

And  no  class  of  people  on  earth  has  benefited  so 
largely  and  so  conspicuously  by  this  revolution  in  the 
business  of  the  world  as  the  poor. 

The  very  machines  and  forces  with  which  cor- 
porations have  developed  the  earth's  resources  have 
multiplied  places  of  employment. 

The  shallow-thinking,  chattering  sensationalists, 
who  are  bringing  fuel  to  destroy  the  corporations  and 
trusts,  are  enemies  of  the  poor  and  in  so  far  as  they 
discredit  these  great  and  beneficent  organizations 
they  obstruct  the  progress  of  our  country. 

General  T.  H.  Hubbard  in  an  address  before  the 
Bowdoin  College  Alumni,  in  New  York,  the  26th 
of  January,  1907,  said:    "  The  oppressed  are  not  the 

"^35 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

people  but  the  corporations.  A  mighty  outcry  is 
raised  against  the  large  gas  companies,  the  railroad 
companies,  and  the  insurance  companies.  Some 
champion  of  the  people,  who  spends  his  time  in  por- 
ing over  Poor's  Manual,  declares  that  gas  companies 
can  and  do  manufacture  their  product  for  thirty  or 
thirty-five  cents  a  thousand  feet.  The  people  listen 
and  forget  that  there  are  other  expenses  to  be  met  by 
the  company  aside  from  the  actual  cost  of  production. 
They  are  not  aware  that  electrolysis,  of  which  they 
know  little  or  nothing,  is  constantly  wearing  out  the 
mains  almost  as  soon  as  they  can  be  Installed.  They 
do  not  realize  that  the  company  Is  really  supplying 
its  product  at  a  price  counting  cost  and  only  a  mod- 
erate profit.  They  forget  that  thousands  of  persons 
are  dependent  for  their  Income  upon  the  earnings 
of  a  corporation  In  which  their  money  Is  Invested 
and  that  these  persons  have  a  right  to  ask  for  a 
reasonable  return  on  the  money  Invested. 

"  Our  railroads  are  surpassed  by  none  In  the  world 
except  so  far  as  regards  loss  of  life  through  accident. 
The  remedy  for  that  Is  to  permit  the  roads  to  earn 
enough  to  pay  for  the  Installation  of  expensive  safety 
systems.  But  Instead  of  aiding  the  roads  some  per- 
son discovers  that  there  are  such  things  as  secret 
rebates  and  Immediately  he  cries  aloud  for  an  in- 
vestigation, not  waiting  to  learn  that  the  roads  them- 
selves have  been  waiting  to  remedy  this  wrong." 

On  the  same  occasion  the  Hon.  James  Mc- 
Keen,  associated  with  Governor  Hughes  as  counsel 

136 


THE    CORPORATIONS 

for  the  Insurance  Investigating  Committee,  said: 
"  Corporations  have  been  a  great  instrument  of 
progress.  Only  through  corporations  can  the  man 
of  small  means  compete  with  swollen  fortunes  and 
yet  the  people  themselves  are  endangering  their 
own  savior  by  their  hysterical  outcries  against  cor- 
porations." 

Has  it  ever  occurred  to  these  agitators  that  their 
attack  is  not  upon  an  organization  or  a  management 
simply,  but  that  the  mulcting  of  a  corporation  is  the 
depreciation  of  the  property  of  those  who  own  its 
stocks  and  that  thousands  of  them  are  in  moderate 
circumstances  and  cannot  afford  such  losses? 

To  hear  these  fomenters  of  discontent  one  would 
think  that  the  corporations  were  owned  by  million- 
aires who  are  a  covey  to  be  fired  into  by  a  flippant 
prosecuting  department.  But  the  people  are  the 
sufferers  through  loss  of  their  property  by  these  irra- 
tional attacks.  What  reason  is  there  in  a  law  that 
fines  a  stockholder  who  has  no  more  to  do  with  the 
management  than  has  the  man  in  the  moon? 

By  such  reckless  assaults  as  characterize  this  ad- 
ministration the  stocks  are  depreciated,  small  holders 
casting  them  overboard,  the  rich  buy  them  up  and  the 
loss  in  the  end  is  exclusively  confined  to  the  poor. 
Attacks  upon  corporations  is  an  admirable  way  to 
destroy  the  savings  of  the  humble.  Let  one  note  the 
New  York  Central,  held  very  largely  by  the  com- 
mon people,  reduced  from  150  to  993^  in  a  few 
weeks  by  this  panic-making  prosecution   for  rebates 

137 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

which  it  was  adjusting  with  far  greater  wisdom  than 
could  the  government  by  the  impracticable  laws 
which  it  is  applying  without  regard  to  consequences. 
The  Attorney  General  in  firing  into  his  famous 
covey  is  shooting  too  many  small  birds  that  ought 
to  be  protected  and  not  destroyed  by  the  laws. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  CORPORATIONS — Continued 

ONE  of  the  singular  if  not  amusing  phases  of 
the  attack  upon  corporations  is  that  many 
of  the  larger  city  newspapers  are  in  a 
Newspaper  Trust  as  thoroughly  as  any  corporate 
business  which  they  condemn,  and  their  methods  of 
business  are  not  an  iota  different.  This  is  conspicu- 
ously so  of  the  principal  yellow  papers  which  are 
in  competition  by  combine  and  cheap'  rates  to  re- 
strain the  trade  of  other  papers  all  over  the  conti- 
nent. 

More  than  one  thousand  reputable  daily  news- 
papers in  this  country  show  by  their  hyphenated 
names,  such  as  Record-Herald,  Times-Democrat, 
Globe  and  Commercial  Advertiser,  Democrat  and 
Chronicle,  Post-Standard,  etc.,  etc.,  the  absorption  of 
one  paper  by  another  in  "  restraint  of  trade  "  !  Any- 
body who  has  given  the  matter  any  attention  knows 
how  news  is  purveyed  by  a  great  trust  for  all  of 
the  papers  of  New  York  or  of  Chicago  and  of  other 
large  cities,  and  how  it  is  the  source  of  many  of  the 
leaders  of  country  newspapers  and  the  bulk  of  their 

139 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

outside  news.  This  is  so  of  the  pictorial  illustrations 
of  many  papers.    A  corporation  docs  them. 

Men  are  sent  out  from  this  trust  to  interview  men 
whose  opinions  are  awakening  public  attention  and 
the  letter  is  sent  to  every  leading  paper  in  the  coun- 
try and  published  as  its  special  correspondence  by  its 
own  reporter  or  given  as  an  interview  direct  to  the 
paper.  I  received  a  paper  within  a  few  days  that  I 
never  had  heard  of  which  stated  that  I  had  sent  to  It 
a  communication  which  to  my  certain  knowledge  had 
appeared  in  scores  of  papers  from  a  common  news 
center,  prepared  by  its  agent. 

The  editorial  writing  of  the  leading  papers  Is  In- 
dependent except  when  the  partisan  mandate  is  sent 
out  from  the  party  bosses  and  headquarters.  But  the 
business,  the  investments,  the  management  Is  like  that 
of  Standard  Oil,  of  United  States  Steel  and  the  other 
great  corporations,  and  the  news-gleaning  is  through 
a  combine.  In  Associated  Press  news  awhile  ago 
there  was  an  opposition  started  so  that  now  we  have 
the  Publishers  Association,  just  as  we  have  the  Pure 
Oil  Co.  opposed  to  the  Standard  Oil  Co.,  In  a  suc- 
cessful rivalry.  When  the  press  of  this  country 
attacks  trusts  and  corporations  like  the  Standard  Oil 
and  Sugar  companies,  etc.,  it  seems  a  little  like  the 
pot  calling  the  kettle  black. 

Each  political  party  has  its  papers  which  are  as 
subservient  and  manageable  for  party  purposes  as  any 
branches  of  trusts  ever  have  been,  and  there  is  a  cloud 
of  witnesses  to  the  fact  that  independent  thought  or 

140 


THE    CORPORATIONS— Co«fi«w^^ 

action  is  attacked  in  the  restraint  of  thought  with  a 
virulence  that  puts  to  blush  any  oppressive  compe- 
tition of  a  corporation  with  independent  trade! 

We  do  not  mention  the  gigantic  newspaper  trusts 
or  the  combination  of  one  or  two  newspapers  in 
smaller  cities  to  condemn  it  but  simply  to  show  an  in- 
consistency in  the  passing  agitation  which  the  people 
are  overlooking,  and  which  ought  to  weigh  against 
such  pretensions  of  loyalty  to  individual  rights  and 
privileges  by  attacks  upon  corporations. 

We  have  more  news,  more  intelligently  gathered, 
more  attractively  presented,  and  more  reliable  than 
we  could  possibly  have  by  any  independent,  isolated 
efforts  to  compass  a  country  so  vast  with  interests  so 
infinitely  varied.  The  combination  of  two  papers  in 
a  second  or  third  class  city  results  almost  invariably  in 
a  much  abler,  larger,  and  every  way  more  satisfactory 
paper. 

One  of  the  most  striking  indications  of  the  mod- 
ern corporation  is  the  astounding  development  of  the 
modern  newspaper,  now  in  all  cases  of  any  magni- 
tude chartered  as  a  corporation.  It  appears  not  only 
in  the  great  journalistic  enterprises  by  which  a  week's 
dailies  are  a  library  of  important,  if  not  indispen- 
sable, matter  upon  all  great  current  questions  and  a 
survey  of  the  world,  but  it  has  its  strictly  business  side 
in  immense  business  buildings  which  are  devoted  to 
rents  and  from  which  dividends  are  paid.  The  invest- 
ments of  the  great  newspapers  are  becoming  a  notice- 
able asset  of  our  country.     Indeed,  they  begin  to  look 

141 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

like  "  predatory  wealth,"  and  here  and  there  the  ten- 
tacles of  an  octopus  are  showing  through  the  inky 
waters. 

The  entire  movements  of  the  age  are  toward  the 
corporations.  Three  fourths  of  the  business  of  our 
country  is  done  by  them.  They  are  to  be  seen  in  the 
way  we  hold  our  churches,  our  universities,  and  man- 
age our  hospitals  and  other  charitable  institutions 
conducted  by  personal  beneficence.  In  no  form  can 
the  business  of  men  be  cast  that  is  so  secure,  that 
is  so  little  disturbed  by  death,  and  that  is  so  safe  to 
widows  and  orphans  suddenly  bereft.  The  corpo- 
ration is  the  result  of  man's  highest  wisdom  in 
commerce. 

At  this  particular  time  It  Is  of  vast  concern  In  this 
country  in  carrying  our  manufactures  and  opening 
up  our  trade  with  all  lands.  When  we  discredit  it 
at  home  by  Ill-considered  attacks,  the  blow  Is  felt 
upon  our  commerce  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  We 
attacked  In  a  reckless  and  needless  way  the  meat 
corporations  of  Chicago,  which.  If  requiring  the  at- 
tention of  Washington  under  the  new  order  of  pa- 
ternalism, could  have  been  reached  in  a  judicious  and 
quiet  manner.  We  set  the  civilized  world  agog  by 
our  loud  trumpetlngs  of  horror  over  the  odors  of  an 
abattoir.  It  was  a  new  experience  for  the  Ameri- 
can people.  A  fiction  writer  had  seen  a  slaughter- 
house and  It  startled  him.  It  was  a  lair  of  horrid 
dangers.  We  had  our  new  excitement.  Washington 
led  the  frenzy.     The  great  men  who  had  made  meat 

142 


THE    CORPORATIONS— Co«//«//^i 

foods,  clean  and  wholesome,  accessible  to  the  people 
everywhere  from  the  humble  homes  to  the  hospitals, 
from  the  logging  camps  in  the  deep  forest  to  the 
palatial  yacht  of  the  millionaire,  stood  helpless  and 
stunned.  They  had  left  their  doors  open  to  the  pub- 
lic and  invited  the  people  in  to  note  the  purity  of 
their  foods  and  the  cleanliness  with  which  they  pre- 
pared them,  as  an  advertisement,  well  knowing  the 
value  of  the  confidence  of  the  people  to  their  busi- 
ness. Visiting  tens  of  thousands  had  gone  away 
with  words  of  enthusiastic  praise,  for  they  had  no  in- 
vestment in  a  sensationalism.  The  blow  fell  with 
all  the  violence  that  the  prosecuting.  Investigating 
enginery  of  the  government  could  put  into  it  without 
discrimination.  The  results  were  confusion  to  the 
investigators,  although  a  judge  was  rebuked  for  not 
convicting  the  innocent. 

But  what  were  the  results  upon  our  meat  com- 
merce In  which  every  ranch  and  every  farm  where 
cattle  are  raised  Is  financially  interested?  Last 
April  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  the  Department  of 
Commerce  and  Labor  issued  a  statement  which 
showed  that  the  exports  of  canned  beef  for  April 
amounted  to  893,017  pounds  against  4,121,000 
pounds  in  the  same  month  last  year.  For  the  ten 
months  ending  with  April  the  exportations  showed 
13,032,703  pounds  against  56,730,873  pounds  dur- 
ing a  similar  period  last  year. 

It  is  stated  by  conservative  and  unprejudiced 
authority  that  the  total  export  sales  for   1907  will 

143 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

probably  not  exceed  15,000,000  pounds  as  against 
64,500,000  pounds  the  year  before. 

The  canned  beef  exports  will  not  exceed  $1,500,- 
000  this  year  compared  with  $6,500,000  in  each  of 
the  past  two  years.  In  other  words,  $5,000,000 
have  been  taken  out  of  the  pockets  of  meat  pro- 
ducers in  foreign  trade  as  the  price  of  an  excited 
and  loud  attack  upon  one  kind  of  corporate  busi- 
ness under  the  charge  that  it  was  poisoning  the 
people.  If  it  had  been  true,  there  was  no  excuse 
for  the  application  of  corrective  methods  in  a 
way  to  discredit  the  business  before  the  civilized 
world. 

But  there  was  not  only  a  shrinkage  of  the  total 
of  export  but  men  in  London,  in  Paris,  and  other 
foreign  cities,  who  had  invested  large  fortunes  in 
establishing  a  great  business  which  was  making  hon- 
est lucrative  returns  were  totally  ruined.  Places 
that  had  been  thronged  with  customers  do  not  re- 
ceive one  order  a  week.  How  long  it  will  take  to 
repair  this  confidence  ruined  by  attacks  as  reckless  as 
they  have  proved  expensive  no  one  can  tell.  In  the 
meantime  the  foreign  trade  is  finding  other  channels 
and  new  adjustments  are  going  on,  to  the  great  loss 
of  the  agricultural  class.  It  is  not  the  meat  corpora- 
tions that  suffer.  They  can  protect  themselves,  but 
the  ranch  owners,  and  even  the  smaller  farmer  who 
raises  a  few  cattle,  sheep,  and  swine  are  the  sufferers. 
It  is  an  object  lesson.  We  will  not  learn  it  while 
the  agitators  can  beat  their  tom-toms  and  confuse 

144 


THE    CORFORATIONS— Continued 

the  facts,  but  in  time  the  country  will  awake  to  the 
peril  of  breaking  down  or  seriously  embarrassing 
any  great  business  by  prosecution,  which  has  its  most 
serious  consequences  in  the  disturbed  if  not  ruined 
confidence  of  a  commerce  that  now  interlocks  all  of 
the  nations  of  the  earth. 

Our  boasted  supremacy  is  not  so  secure  that  we 
may  safely  trifle  with  it.  We  have  made  a  magnifi- 
cent initiative.  But  if  we  are  to  add  our  influence 
to  the  obstruction  and  resistance  of  foreign  competi- 
tion which  means  limitless  millions  against  our  trade, 
how  long  can  we  expect  to  hold  our  place  in  export 
commerce? 

Other  nations  are  awakening.  There  are  bound- 
less extents  of  the  earth's  surface  that  only  wait  cap- 
ital to  yield  many  of  our  products  and  oppose  to  us 
a  serious  competition. 

The  awakening  of  a  people  such  as  those  of  the 
Republics  south  of  us,  and  China,  is  sometimes  ter- 
rifically sudden,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  Japan. 
If  this  little  people  with  resources  scarcely  more  than 
enough  for  home  consumption  can  change  the  map 
of  the  world  in  a  decade,  what  may  be  expected  when 
the  mightiest  giant  among  nations  arouses  himself  and 
China  takes  up  the  forces  which  Japan  brought  out 
of  the  West? 

That  we  are  to  have  a  successful  competition  in 
other  nations  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  five  million  dol- 
lars which  was  coming  to  our  shores  for  one  product 
has  turned  to  other   directions.     The  world   could 

145 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

live  without  us  if  we  were  blotted  off  the  earth.     We 
can  blot  ourselves  off. 

Our  place  among  the  nations  depends  upon  the 
strength  and  breadth  of  our  grasp  of  the  times  more 
than  upon  our  national  resources.  If  we  are  greater 
than  other  peoples,  we  shall  be  essential  to  them;  we 
shall  produce  things  which  they  want  and  will  have 
at  our  price.  If  we  discredit  ourselves,  we  shall  be 
discredited  by  them. 

No  peoples  of  the  world  have  made  such  mag- 
nificent use  of  corporate  strength  as  we  have.  We 
have  been  forced  to  it  by  the  extent  of  our  country. 
The  genius  of  our  economic  endeavor  has  worked 
naturally  in  that  direction  and  until  an  Insane  frenzy 
attacked  us  we  were  the  amazement  of  mankind 
everywhere.  Now  it  is  proposed  that  we  advertise 
to  the  world  that  our  business  methods  were  all 
wrong,  that  we  have  become  frightened  at  ourselves 
and  distrustful  of  our  powers,  and  that  hereafter  we 
shall  contract  and  curtail  our  business  to  the  capacity 
of  our  smallest  men  and  send  to  prison  or  fine  our 
greatest  men  for  restraining  trade !  And  the  men 
who  are  sending  abroad  oil,  steel,  meats,  and  drugs 
and  medicine  are  criminals  who  are  sending  out  to 
the  world  the  fruits  of  "  predatory  "  business. 

A  recent  able  editorial  of  the  Manufacturers'  Rec- 
ord, of  Baltimore,  showing  the  competition  with  our 
trade  and  the  encouragement  of  our  capital  in  the 
South  American  States  and  other  countries,  concludes 
with  this  timely  warning:  "  Blessed  by  the  Almighty 

146 


THE    CORPORATIONS— Co;///;/w^^ 

with  a  country  unequalled  In  natural  advantages  on 
earth,  blessed  by  a  prosperity  such  as  no  other  country 
has  ever  enjoyed,  we  have  permitted  the  political 
agitator,  the  socialist,  the  anarchist,  the  demagogue, 
who  Is  a  demagogue  from  lack  of  knowledge,  and 
the  demagogue  who  Is  a  demagogue  for  the  pur- 
pose of  riding  Into  power  on  the  passions  and  preju- 
dices of  the  people,  to  so  arouse  the  fears  of  capital 
by  adverse  legislation,  actual  and  threatened,  that 
we  are  In  danger  of  seeing  our  own  country  forced  to 
a  standstill,  while  the  capital  which  would  vivify 
every  avenue  of  trade  seeks  investment  In  other  lands 
to  their  enrichment  as  against  us.  These  are  not 
fanciful  sketches.  The  history  of  the  world  shows 
that  what  Is  here  outlined  as  a  possibility  is,  Indeed, 
a  tangible  thing  that  may  come  to  pass.  Instead  of 
ranting  against  capital.  Instead  of  denouncing  the 
railroads  which  are  giving  us  freight  rates  not  one 
third  as  high  on  the  average  as  the  freight  rates  of 
Great  Britain,  and  not  one  half  as  high  as  the  rates 
of  Germany,  and  but  little  more  than  one  third  as 
high  as  France,  Instead  of  heralding  as  though  with 
great  joy  every  effort  made  to  hamper  the  operations 
of  the  great  Industrial  corporations  which  have  helped 
to  create  the  wealth  of  which  we  boast,  and  have  been 
the  leading  agencies  In  the  development  of  all  of  our 
foreign  trade  In  manufactured  products,  Instead  of 
following  the  lead  of  the  agitator  against  the  funda- 
mental soundness  of  American  business  interests,  has 
not  the  time  come  for  the  people  of  this  country  to 

147 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

take  a  saner  view  of  things,  and  instead  of  joining 
in  the  work  of  tearing  down,  take  part  in  the  upbuild- 
ing of  the  great  business  development  of  this  coun- 
try? Unless  poverty  is  to  take  the  place  of  pros- 
perity, unless  idle  men  are  to  walk  our  streets  seeking 
in  vain  for  employment  as  in  1893  to  1896,  unless  we 
want  to  destroy  the  temple  and  carry  ourselves  down 
in  the  ruins  to  business  death,  the  thinking  people  of 
this  country  must  awake  to  their  individual  responsi- 
bility to  face  the  issue  and  stem  the  destructive  tend- 
encies of  the  times.  In  our  madness  we  may  destroy 
the  railroads  and  the  great  business  interests  of  the 
country,  but  we,  the  people,  are  the  ones  who  shall 
suffer  most." 

We  repeat  that  the  pretended  friends  of  the  peo- 
ple who  make  the  claims  for  that  friendship  by  their 
attacks  upon  the  corporate  business  of  the  country 
in  their  incendiary  writings,  speeches,  and  sermons, 
are  dangerous  enemies  of  the  country,  and  their 
teachings  and  influence  are  harmful  in  the  extreme  to 
men  and  women  who  by  hundreds  of  thousands  de- 
pend upon  such  business  for  their  daily  wage. 

They  should  know  that  in  the  nature  of  things 
whatever  they  take  out  of  the  corporation  by  excit- 
ing strikes  and  by  inefficient  service  through  discon- 
tent and  distrust  they  take  from  the  people. 

We  are  paying  to-day  for  the  recent  great  coal 
strike,  the  unwisely  conducted  and  highly  damaging 
meat  investigation,  and  for  such  foolish,  obstructive 
and  expensive  legislation  as  is  now  embarrassing  the 

148 


THE    CORPORATlON^y— Continued 

business  of  the  land  to  which  our  home  interests  are 
so  vitally  related. 

There  is  no  possible  escape  from  such  conse- 
quences. It  is  high  time  for  well-meaning  but  mis- 
guided men  to  look  carefully  into  the  consequences  of 
their  attacks  upon  corporations  and  inquire  how 
widely  their  vast  interests  extend  and  how  much  they 
involve.  They  should  inquire  what  is  to  take  their 
place  if  these  are  destroyed  and  how  they  can  expect  to 
hasten  the  correction  of  their  wrongs  by  turning  the 
confidence  of  the  people  from  them  and  making  their 
very  name  to  stand  for  all  kinds  of  iniquities.  Sane 
men  will  appreciate  that  the  experiment  with  corpo- 
rate business  is  extremely  young.  Men  are  living  who 
saw  the  first  railway  train  run  on  this  continent.  All 
of  this  tremendous  machinery  of  commerce  and  trade 
has  been  set  in  motion  since  men  in  control  of  cor- 
porations were  born,  and  because  these  men  have  not 
infinite  prescience  and  millennial  perfection,  we  curse 
them.  Theirs  is  a  miracle  of  achievement.  They  are 
more  marvelous  than  all  human  activities  in  all  of  the 
centuries  preceding  them.  They  have  Inspired  in- 
ventions and  multiplied  the  arts  and  made  science  a 
servant  of  daily  toil.  They  have  enriched  us  with 
every  good  gift  that  they  have  compelled  nature  to 
yield  to  them  from  mine  and  meadow  and  by  the  al- 
chemic processes  of  manufacture.  They  have  taken 
the  very  refuse  that  ofi^ended  the  roadside  and  the 
yards  of  the  homes  of  the  plain  people  and  made  it 
into  clothes  for  their  persons  and  medicine  to  cure 
11  149 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

their  sickness.  And  they  have  placed  us  under  in- 
finite obligation  of  patience  and  confidence.  Out  of 
such  a  brief  history,  what  achievements  are  In  the 
future? 

It  is  popular  to-day  to  assail  the  corporation.  It 
is  unpopular  to  defend  it  or  to  utter  any  plea  for 
impartial  and  fair  examination  of  its  merits  by  its 
assailants  who  are  deceiving  the  people  by  the  vio- 
lence of  their  vituperation.  But  there  is  coming  a 
reaction. 

We  shall  after  a  time  recognize  it  as  a  natural  and 
indispensable  feature  of  our  economy.  The  adjust- 
ments will  have  been  made  In  all  particulars  as  they 
are  now  In  some.  There  Is  no  longer  any  competi- 
tion between  a  stage  route  and  a  railway  that  dis- 
turbs the  people.  The  steamboat  has  drifted  off  the 
Mississippi  with  as  little  friction  as  its  fogs  disappear. 
There  Is  no  clash  between  the  hand  looms  and  the 
power  looms.  The  brick  and  mortar  lifts  are  not 
cursed  by  the  hod  carriers.  The  machines  that  In 
about  every  Instance  have  been  opposed  are  recog- 
nized and  used  as  Invaluable  adjuncts  to  labor.  It 
Is  all  plain,  men  have  become  as  big  as  a  loom  and  a 
railroad.  After  a  time  we  shall  get  great  enough 
and  so  used  to  great  things  In  their  application  to 
business  as  to  accept  them  even  against  the  protests 
of  men  who  are  forced  to  give  way  before  them  and 
even  to  abandon  their  business  for  some  other  kind  of 
enterprise. 

While  the  adjustment  Is  going  on  there  Is  always 
150 


THE    CORPORATIONS— Cow/f«M^i 

friction  and  loud  complaint.  New  shoes  gall  the 
feet  sometimes  because  they  do  not  fit  and  some- 
times because  the  feet  are  not  accustomed  to  shoes. 
In  great  enterprises  there  always  is  much  of  pioneer- 
ing to  be  done,  many  experiments  to  be  made,  many 
points  at  which  there  is  friction.  But  it  is  as  costly 
to  the  enterprise  as  to  the  people.  Intelligence  will 
yield  a  mutual  forbearance. 

The  astonishment  in  a  land  of  our  tremendous 
area  and  resources  is  that  the  corporations  have  ac- 
complished as  much  for  the  public  as  they  have. 
Nearly  every  invention  has  been  displaced  by  a  new 
one.  No  sooner  has  steam  been  adopted  and  well 
settled  to  its  place  as  a  motive  power  than  electricity 
comes  along  to  contest  its  supremacy.  No  sooner  is 
one  great  engine  invented  than  some  one  produces  a 
greater.  One  generator  drives  another"  out  of  the 
market  in  rapid  succession.  Enormous  traffic  calls 
for  new  bridges,  new  rolling  stock.  The  impatience 
of  an  unreasonable  traveling  public  demands  short- 
ened schedules  and  curves  are  straightened  and  tun- 
nels are  bored  through  mountains.  Fabulous  mil- 
lions are  put  at  the  disposal  of  the  people  at  a  cost 
astonishingly  less  than  they  could  render  the  service 
to  themselves  by  any  other  means  or  than  was  pos- 
sible by  any  means  fifty  years  ago. 

Commodities  are  cheapened  again  and  again  un- 
til they  cost  less  than  the  slowly  hand-made  packages 
which  conveyed  them  cost  in  the  days  of  our  fathers. 
A  small  per  cent  on  an  immense  trade  Is  the  profit 

151 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

we  pay  to  corporations.  A  large  profit  on  a  small 
business  we  used  to  pay  the  individual. 

But  we  think  of  none  of  these  things.  The  more 
we  have  the  more  we  clamor.  It  has  been  shown  that 
labor  gets  three  or  four  dollars  out  of  about  every 
business  where  capital  gets  one  in  profit,  but  because 
we  see  the  vast  aggregate  of  the  one  and  because  the 
other  is  distributed  among  the  multitudes  we  cry  out 
against  the  grinding  corporation.  Because  the  man 
who  puts,  by  the  genius  of  his  mind  or  the  savings 
of  investments  of  a  generation  or  two  or  several  gen- 
erations, which  in  the  latter  case  have  descended  to 
him,  into  the  work  of  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  men, 
the  man  who  puts  in  the  work  of  one  man  only,  and 
does  not  save  that,  thinks  that  the  inequality  of  liv^- 
ing  Is  due  to  the  disjointed  times  which  the  dema- 
gogue tells  him  can  be  cured  if  he  himself  can  only 
get  into  office. 

And  that  is  largely  the  secret  of  the  present  up- 
roar against  corporate  business.  Politics  has  made 
it  an  issue  and  the  politicians  are  tumbling  over  each 
other  with  their  economic  nostrums  which  they  offer 
attractively  to  a  public  whose  discontent  they  have 
created,  but  whose  discontent  is  magnified  far  beyond 
the  actual  facts. 

It  is  my  opinion  that  the  multitudes  of  our  intel- 
ligent people  are  not  responsive  to  attacks  upon  rail- 
ways which  are  enlarging  their  markets  and  bringing 
them  into  connection  with  all  the  earth,  nor  to  the 
violent  assaults  upon  corporate  business  which  has 

1^2 


THE    CORPORATIONS— CoH//«tt^^ 

made  the  most  inland  farm  to  have  and  enjoy  those 
things  which  a  few  decades  ago  were  the  exclusive 
luxury  of  the  rich. 

The  insistent  charge  that  the  people  are  victims 
of  corporate  greed,  that  they  are  being  crushed  by 
the  merciless  arms  of  the  octopus,  is  as  false  as  it  is 
insulting  to  the  intelligence  of  the  people.  When 
the  facts  are  sifted  out,  when  the  self-interest  has 
been  weighed  and  put  over  to  its  own  account,  when 
the  theorists  and  self-seekers  who  care  not  whether 
a  thing  is  true  or  false  are  silenced  by  indisputable 
facts  as  they  will  be,  we  shall  find  that  the  public 
debt  to  corporations  is  so  great  that  their  mistakes, 
their  wrongs  are  not  appreciable  by  comparison. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  poll  a  community  and 
ask  each  man  on  every  street:  "Have  you  con- 
sciously suffered  by  a  railroad,  have  you' been  ground 
down  by  a  trust,  is  your  life  less  prosperous  or  happy 
than  that  of  your  boyhood  or  that  of  your  father  or 
grandfather?  How  came  you  in  this  comfortable 
home,  with  a  business  that  supports  your  home  so  lux- 
uriously, if  everything  is  going  to  pile  up  '  predatory 
wealth '  '  out  of  the  pockets  of  the  common  people,' 
and  how  happens  it  that  the  conditions  of  the  neigh- 
borhood have  been  improving  for  a  generation  and 
are  now  improving?  How  did  you,  a  mechanic,  get 
this  cottage  and  this  green  lawn  and  your  savings-bank 
account  with  your  daily  wage?  Whom  do  you  get 
it  all  from  and  what  is  the  kind  of  business  that  gives 
it  to  you?" 

^53 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

The  most  gigantic  piece  of  impertinence  that  ever 
has  been  thrust  into  the  faces  of  the  American  peo- 
ple is  the  hourly  and  daily  talk  of  their  being  ground 
down  by  trusts  and  robbed  by  capital  and  run  over 
and  run  down  by  railways  and  other  so-called  util- 
ities. It  is  an  insult  to  our  common  intelligence  that 
ought  to  be  rebuked. 

If  there  is  any  man  that  should  be  relegated  to 
private  life  that  the  sphere  of  his  influence  may  be 
narrowed  as  much  as  possible,  it  is  the  agitator  who 
has  neither  statesmanship  to  discern  the  signs  of  the 
times  nor  the  common  honesty  to  verify  the  un- 
founded and  untrue  charges  with  which  he  assails  the 
business  and  social  conditions  of  the  people. 

The  burden  of  a  fair  criticism  of  these  times 
would  not  be  the  evils  of  our  forms  of  business  but 
their  amazing  efficiency.  The  people  are  not  op- 
pressed by  the  corporations,  but  the  corporations  by 
the  people.  And  by  the  people  I  do  not  mean  the 
great  masses  of  the  people,  but  those  forms  of  legisla- 
tion and  administration  which  we  call  the  government 
by  the  people — a  government  that  is  used  to  attack 
anybody  or  anything  in  any  way  that  may  serve  a 
party,  a  government  that  is  an  amazement  of  strength 
after  being  run  now  in  this  direction,  now  in  that, 
now  for  the  Constitution,  now  against  it,  now  for  the 
States  and  now  against  them,  now  with  the  tariff,  now 
without  it,  now  chartering  the  great  corporations,  now 
assailing  them  and  persecuting  them  according  to  the 
fortunes  of  conflicting  parties  and  the  issues  which 


THE    CORPORATIONS— Co«^i«M^^ 

their  ingenuity  may  devise  to  accomplish  their  ends. 
With  what  lumber  have  we  scaffolded  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  Nation  and  the  Constitutions  of  the  States 
to  secure  the  people  against  the  corporations?  Look 
at  our  commissions  with  their  trained  olfactories, 
mark  the  doings  of  the  courts,  note  the  frantic  prose- 
cuting officers  with  their  subpoena  servers.  What  as- 
tonishment we  should  see  in  the  eyes  of  the  statesmen 
whom  we  had  in  the  days  of  statesmen  when  moral 
convictions  made  wise  and  sound  principles  stable; 
with  what  amazement  a  Washington,  a  Jefferson,  a 
Madison,  and  an  Adams  would  look  upon  this  scaf- 
folding of  the  structure  which  they  reared  only  a  hun- 
dred and  twenty  years  ago. 

Imagine  what  will  be  the  astonishment  of  the 
economic  student  of  a  hundred  years  to  come  as  he 
reviews  the  childish  alarm  of  such  a  time  as  this. 

Could  there  be  anything  more  puerile  than  the  ap- 
pointing of  men  untrained.  Inexperienced,  and  with- 
out financial  responsibility  for  their  acts,  to  control 
railways  and  to  report  upon  the  management  of  cor- 
porations that  would  not  Intrust  them  with  a  subor- 
dinate executive  position — that  they  cannot  discuss 
even  intelligently,  as  has  recently  been  shown  in  the 
case  of  a  certain  report  by  one  of  these  plainly  preju- 
diced commissioners! 

Men  of  lifelong  training,  men  who  know  that  the 
success  of  the  business  and  the  interests  of  the  peo- 
ple must  coincide,  men  who  must  give  an  account  of 
their  stewardship  In  dividends  and  a  satisfactory  serv- 

155 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

ice  to  the  public  are  subordinated  to  a  body  of  men 
conspicuous  on  the  world's  waiting  iist  for  their  lack 
of  expert  knowledge,  men  chosen  to  give  their  at- 
tention to  a  mighty  business  which  never  would  have 
dreamed  of  employing  them  for  any  efficient  service 
they  could  render  it. 

The  railways  are  not  to  be  owned  by  the  people, 
but  they  are  to  be  managed  by  men  who  know  noth- 
ing about  them. 

But  it  is  enough  if  they  know  the  people  and  how 
to  manage  them.  Something  must  be  done  to 
checkmate  the  ranting  socialism  of  the  other  party 
if  we  all  become  socialists  and  if  our  commerce  is  dis- 
credited throughout  the  world. 


CHAPTER    X 

THE    STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY 

THAT  corporation  which  has  been  the  sub- 
ject of  the  fiercest  attacks  because  in  a 
field  of  the  sharpest  competition  has  been 
one  of  the  greatest  benefactors  our  country  ever  has 
known,  whether  viewed  as  the  laboring  man's  friend 
from  his  day  wage  to  the  lamp  in  his  cottage,  or  as 
the  producer  of  a  civilizing  force  world-wide. 

Until  those  men  of  genius  who  founded  the  Stand- 
ard Oil  Company  came  upon  the  ground  and  united 
their  consummate  ability  and  capital,  the  oil  industry 
was  feeble  and  aimless.  But  from  that  time  its  devel- 
opment has  kept  pace  with  the  demands  of  the  mar- 
kets of  the  world.  The  producer  has  found  a  market 
for  his  oil  as  constant  as  that  of  the  farmer  for  his 
wheat  and  corn,  and  the  consumer  has  purchased  his 
oil  at  a  sum  "  about  the  cost  of  mineral  water." 

That  mistakes  have  been  made  no  one  denies,  but 
for  them  its  friends  do  not  apologize  any  more  than 
they  do  for  the  mistakes  of  all  kinds  of  business 
which  have  progressed  to  success.  In  business  prin- 
ciples or  in  the  application  of  business  methods,  its 

157 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

men  have  been  at  least  as  fair  as  the  independents 
who  have  fought  them  and  who,  animated  by  trans- 
parent motives,  have  succeeded  through  the  press, 
the  magazines,  the  legislatures,  and  repeated  prose- 
cutions in  creating  the  intense  prejudice  of  the  people. 
The  independent  has  done  precisely  the  things  which 
he  accuses  the  Standard  Oil  Company  of  doing,  in  re- 
bates and  in  the  use  of  competitive  methods  of  busi- 
ness, but  strange  as  it  is  he  has  been  honest  and  the 
Standard  Oil  has  been  dishonest  and  oppressive  ! 

This  mighty  industry  has  grown  up  by  the  meth- 
ods that  have  been  recognized  and  used  by  all  forms 
of  successful  competition.  It  has  succeeded  because 
of  the  combination  of  the  leading  experts  in  the  oil  in- 
dustry at  the  beginning,  and  the  use  of  an  adequate 
capital  by  men  whose  marvelous  ability  would  have 
carried  them  to  supreme  success  in  any  field  of  activity 
to  which  fortune  might  have  assigned  them. 

The  Standard  Oil  Company  is  an  industrial  and 
commercial  organization  which  from  a  modest  begin- 
ning thirty-seven  years  ago  in  the  State  of  Ohio  has 
steadily  grown  to  world-embracing  proportions.  It 
is  to  be  expected  of  all  businesses  which  endure  for 
a  like  period  that  they  will  expand  and  increase  In 
volume,  provided  first  of  all  they  find  room  for  ex- 
pansion with  adequate  supply  of  commodities,  and 
secondly,  that  their  leadership  is  active  and  intelli- 
gent. Because  the  Standard  Oil  Company  has  had 
these  three  favoring  factors — supply,  demand,  and  an 
organization  in  continuous  and  progressive  action — It 

158 


THE    STANDARD    OIL   COMPANY 

has  become  extended  and  prosperous.  In  this  It  dif- 
fers from  no  other  business  of  stabihty.  It  has  had 
no  patent  of  monopoly;  it  had  no  protective  tariff 
laws  whatever  for  its  main  product.  All  it  has 
gained  in  the  battle  has  been  the  result  of  hard,  un- 
intermittent  work,  sustained  commercial  integrity,  and 
effective  management.  Always  its  credit  has  been 
sound  and  unquestioned;  always  it  has  had  the  con- 
fidence of  those  with  whom  it  did  business  and  the 
zeal  of  those  who  worked  for  it.  Never  has  it  had 
difficulty  with  the  consumers  of  its  products.  If  its 
affairs  called  for  courage  and  commercial  stamina, 
it  has  always  answered  to  the  call.  The  heaviest  de- 
mand on  its  resources  and  the  occasional  call  for 
Titanic  activity  were  met  equally  with  the  most 
faithful  and  painstaking  questioning  of  the  smallest 
details  of  the  business.  Such  in  simplest  outline  is 
and  has  been  the  Standard  Oil  Company's  machinery. 
Its  opportunities  were  open  to  all.  Nature  has 
underlaid  a  portion  of  the  surface  of  the  earth  with 
petroleum.  Despite  manifold  oozings  of  the  fluid 
to  the  surface,  the  records  of  which  unmistakably  dot 
all  historic  periods  and  even  show  signs  in  the  cre- 
puscular or  mythological  period  before  history  was 
born,  the  secret  of  the  great  subsurface  reservoirs 
remained  concealed  until  Colonel  Edwin  L.  Drake's 
drill  on  August  28,  1859,  broke  through  the  crust  of 
the  ages  near  Titusville,  Pa.,  and  released  the 
long-pent  streams  of  "  rock  oil."  Excitement,  ad- 
venture,   speculative    investment   and   crude   organi- 

159 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

zation  followed  the  discovery  of  petroleum.  The 
field  of  operations  extended  as  new  seekers  after  the 
imprisoned  rivers  of  oil  pierced  the  surface  with  the 
drill.  It  is  enough  for  the  immediate  purpose  to  note 
that  from  the  little  corner  of  Pennsylvania,  field  after 
field  has  been  discovered  during  the  last  half  cen- 
tury, and  that  to-day  oil  is  found  in  sixteen  States  and 
Territories  of  the  Union  and  in  a  score  of  countries 
throughout  the  world. 

The  business  naturally  fell  into  four  divisions, 
production,  refining,  transportation,  and  marketing. 
For  over  ten  years  following  the  first  discovery  in 
Pennsylvania  the  oil  business  was  practically  a  go- 
as-you-please  affair.  Prices  were  high  but  fluctu- 
ated violently.  Supply  was  growing,  demand  keep- 
ing pace  with  it,  yet  the  business  that  had  such 
grounds  for  prosperity  was  uncertain  and  ruined 
many.  Refineries  large  and  small,  mostly  the  latter, 
sprang  up  in  the  vicinity  of  the  oil  wells.  Failures 
and  fires  were  frequent.  An  Internal  Revenue  war 
tax  added  to  the  difficulties  of  the  refiners  and  dealers, 
and  many  stills  and  refineries  were  seized  by  the  Fed- 
eral officials  for  nonpayment  of  the  tax.  Speculation 
ran  riot  and  continually  destroyed  its  victims. 

It  was  Inevitable  In  a  community  dowered  with 
such  organizing  qualities  as  Americans  have  always 
possessed,  that  some  strong  hand  should  reduce  the 
ferment  and  chaos  of  the  oil  business  to  order.  That 
strong,  sure  hand  was  first  seen  when  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  of  Ohio  was  incorporated  at  Cleveland 

1 60 


THE    STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY 

in  1870.  The  new  company  was  equipped  to  begin 
the  work  of  standardizing  the  quality  of  oil  and  oil 
products  of  the  world — a  most  important  thing  from 
the  points  of  view  of  public  service  and  safety — and 
at  the  same  time  approaching  a  standardization  of 
prices  to  oil  producers  on  one  side  and  oil  consumers 
on  the  other,  solving  besides  the  problem  of  contin- 
uous and  economic  transportation.  The  capital  of 
the  new  concern  was  only  $1,000,000,  but  so  attract- 
ive proved  the  plans  and  operations  of  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  that  rapid  accessions  of  capital  were 
made  as  other  concerns,  in  obedience  to  the  modern 
tendency  to  combination,  came  in,  until  in  1882,  after 
twelve  years  of  existence,  the  greater  step  of  organiza- 
tion into  a  trust  was  made,  when  the  combined  capital 
it  represented  was  $70,000,000,  afterwards  increased 
to  $95,000,000,  In  attaining  this  growth  in  twelve 
years  it  had  gradually  attracted  to  it  the  ablest  and 
most  progressive  brains  in  the  business.  The  trans- 
port problem  had  passed  from  the  stage  of  horse- 
drawn  wagons  and  branch  lines  of  railroads  to  pipe 
lines  and  trunk  railroads,  with  the  pipe-line  service 
steadily  growing.  The  refining  problem  had  been 
solved  by  the  creation  of  mighty  plants  with  enor- 
mous capacity  placed  at  strategic  points  for  distribu- 
tion. The  utilization  of  by-products  was  pushed  in 
whatever  direction  science  could  direct  them.  The 
export  trade,  organized  with  skill  and  success,  took 
a  commanding  position  in  the  markets  of  the  world. 
American  kerosene  oil  and  all  other  products  of  the 

i6i 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

crude  oil  were  placed  at  the  doors  of  consumers  at 
home  and  abroad.  Nothing  has  been  able  to  halt 
this  industrial  and  commercial  progress.  I'he  organ- 
ization of  the  Standard  Oil  Trust  of  1882  was 
simply  an  expedient  for  better  and  more  intimate 
management.  At  the  end  of  ten  years  it  was  dis- 
solved in  obedience  to  the  conflict  of  its  organized 
form  with  newly  made  laws,  and  after  a  period  of 
winding  up  its  legal  affairs,  the  business  meanwhile 
being  steadily  developed,  it  was  reorganized  in  1899 
with  a  capital  of  $110,000,000  as  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  of  New  Jersey.  In  this  form  and  with  this 
minimum  of  capitalization  it  has  remained  to  the 
present. 

As  the  Standard  Oil  Company  began  its  opera- 
tions surrounded  by  rivals  in  the  growing  oil  business, 
so  it  has  since  continued  to  have  active  competitors  in 
every  branch.  With  the  exception  of  those  planned 
in  hopeless  defiance  of  business  principles  and  a  few 
absolutely  fraudulent  concerns,  these  rivals  have 
found  the  way  to  prosperity.  Their  business  rating 
has  increased  continuously  for  the  last  ten  years,  the 
progressiv^e  record  of  many  of  the  existing  plants  go- 
ing far  back  of  that  period.  They  have,  too,  been 
most  liberally  capitalized.  A  recent  examination  of 
this  point  reveals  that  one  hundred  oil  refineries  out 
of  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  "  outside,"  or 
as  they  are  sometimes  called  "  independent,"  refiner- 
ies in  the  United  States  show  a  total  capitalization  of 
$110,000,000.    This,  of  course,  does  not  include  the 

162 


THE    STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY 

capitalization  of  the  well-drilling  and  oil-producing 
companies  flourishing  everywhere  that  oil  is  found. 

The  magnitude  of  the  crude-oil  output  as  the 
years  went  on,  showing  the  increased  flow  with  which 
the  Standard  Oil  Company  has  had  to  deal,  can  be 
briefly  shown.  From  1859  to  1876  American  petro- 
leum was  produced  in  the  original  field  radiating  from 
Oil  Creek  in  Pennsylvania  and  crossing  the  near-by 
border  into  New  York  State.  In  the  latter  year  Ohio, 
West  Virginia,  and  California  appeared  as  produc- 
ers. Kentucky  and  Tennessee  began  in  1883  with 
a  light  production,  which  is  latterly  increasing.  Col- 
orado followed  in  1887.  Indiana,  Illinois,  Kansas, 
Texas,  and  Missouri  came  in  in  1889.  Indian  Ter- 
ritory began  its  oil  history  in  1891,  and  Wyoming's 
first  chapter  was  in  1895,  while  Louisiana  first 
gave  sign  in  1902.  The  original  field,  known 
largely  in  the  history  to  follow  as  the  "  Oil  Region  " 
because  it  was  foolishly  thought  to  hold  all  the  oil  in 
the  oil  world,  has  shown  a  falling  off  in  production 
from  the  maximum  of  33,000,000  barrels  it  attained 
in  1 89 1 .  At  present  it  produces  but  one  third  of  that 
high  figure,  and  furnishes  little  more  than  one  twelfth 
of  the  total  output  of  crude  oil  in  the  United  States. 
With  each  successive  expansion  of  the  actual  oil-pro- 
ducing territory  new  problems  faced  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  in  dealing  with  the  enormously  increas- 
ing production  of  crude  oil.  With  what  enterprise 
and  skill  it  solved  these  problems  is  told  in  the  story  of 
the  network  of  pipe  lines,  storage  tanks,  and  strategi- 

163 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

cally  placed  refineries  promptly  taking  the  increased 
supply  and  as  promptly  meeting  the  growing  demand. 

In  i860,  the  year  following  the  first  discovery  of 
oil,  the  output  of  petroleum  in  the  United  States  was 
27,300,000  gallons.  In  1870,  when  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  was  organized,  the  flow  at  the  wells  was 
237,678,000  gallons.  In  1906  it  was  5,257,099,890 
gallons,  or  over  twenty-two  times  the  production  of 
1870. 

A  brief  examination  of  the  physical  side  of  the 
company's  operations  will  discover  many  matters  of 
interest.  Although  its  business  at  the  start,  thirty- 
seven  years  ago,  was  simply  as  a  refiner  and  seller  of 
oil,  it  necessarily  became  a  collector  and  transporter, 
and  subsequently,  in  a  limited  degree,  a  producer  of 
oil.  Outside  capital  has  generally  found  it  profit- 
able to  undertake  the  work  of  drilling  and  operating 
wells  provided  there  was  some  organization  at  hand 
to  take  the  oil  at  a  fair  price.  This  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  was  always  willing  to  do,  no  matter 
what  the  initial  cost.  As  time  passed,  varying  condi- 
tions in  new  fields  or  slackening  production  in  old 
fields  forced  the  company  somewhat  into  the  arena  of 
production,  but  it  has  never  controlled  over  one  third 
of  the  flowing  well  capacity  of  the  country.  The 
company's  field  force  at  the  wells  numbers  8,500  men. 

But  its  task  of  collecting  and  transporting  crude 
oil  from  the  wells  to  the  refineries  has  been  limited 
only  by  the  calls  of  the  producers.  Thus  no  less  than 
75,000  miles  of  two-inch  pipe    (known  as  feeders) 

164 


THE    STANDARD    OIL    COiMPANY 

and  three-Inch,  four-inch  and  six-inch  pipe  (known 
as  trunk  lines)  are  in  operation  to-day.  These  are 
subsidiary  to  the  trunk  lines  of  six-inch,  eight-inch, 
and  twelve-inch  pipe,  and  of  these  there  are  8,000 
miles  in  operation.  From  the  feeders  and  semi- 
trunk  lines  the  oil  is  collected  in  tanks  holding  35,- 
000  barrels  each.  A  group  of  these,  often  of  100 
and  200  tanks,  set  widely  apart  to  avoid  fire  dangers, 
is  called  a  tank  farm.  From  these  tanks  the  oil  is 
drawn  off  to  the  trunk  lines  in  charges  of  350,000 
barrels.  Where  the  oil  does  not  run  by  gravity 
powerful  pumps  are  necessary  to  force  it  over  inter- 
vening heights  and  hills.  There  are  70  pumping 
stations  for  the  trunk  lines,  calling  for  engines  from 
80  to  800  horse  power.  The  total  storage  capacity 
of  the  company  (apart  from  the  refinery  tankage)  is 
over  82,000,000  barrels.  Often  in  the  company's 
history,  owing  to  sudden  increase  in  the  flowing  oil 
In  new  territory,  it  has  been  necessary  to  take  and  store 
crude  oil  far  In  excess  of  the  regular  demand,  involv- 
ing months  of  continuous  work  as  well  as  very  great 
expense  and  risk.  At  times  as  much  as  23,000,000 
barrels  of  oil  has  been  held  in  storage.  Over  10,000 
men  are  required  to  man  the  feeders;  over  3,000  men 
are  employed  on  the  trunk  lines. 

The  company  operates  19  large  refineries,  some 
of  them  like  the  one  at  Whiting,  Ind.,  treating 
as  much  as  30,000  barrels  of  crude  oil  a  day  and 
turning  out  15,000  to  20,000  barrels  of  refined  oil, 
according  to  the  quality  of  the  crude,  with  a  corre- 
13  165 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

spending  amount  of  other  products  of  petroleum,  such 
as  gasoline  and  benzine,  paraffine  wax  and  candles, 
lubricating  oil,  fuel  oil,  and  more  than  200  smaller 
chemical  by-products.  Some  refineries  cover  as  much 
as  200  acres  of  land  with  their  stills,  agitators,  pans, 
tanks,  etc.  In  the  early  days  refineries  handled  as 
little  as  25  to  30  barrels  of  crude  oil  a  day.  To 
some  of  these  modern  refineries  are  attached  barrel- 
making,  boxing,  and  tinning  plants,  sulphuric  acid 
works,  etc.     The  refineries  employ  over  20,000  men. 

For  the  selling  and  marketing  of  oil  and  oil 
products  the  business  naturally  falls  into  two  divi- 
sions, one  concerned  in  merchandising  for  the  domes- 
tic trade  and  one  for  the  export  trade.  For  the 
domestic  trade  (including  Canada)  there  are  3,900 
stations,  each  equipped  with  at  least  one  35,000  bar- 
rel tank,  employing  in  addition  5,000  of  the  com- 
pany's tank  wagons;  using  also  8,800  railroad  tank 
cars,  and  employing  12,200  men. 

In  the  export  trade  (which  constitutes  sixty  per 
cent  of  the  company's  business)  the  Standard  Oil  con- 
trols or  owns  a  fleet  of  60  tank  steamers  for  ocean 
service,  12  tank  steamers  and  tank  barges  for  coast- 
ing trade,  5  cargo  steamers  for  cases  of  10  gallons 
each  and  19  sailing  vessels,  chartering,  besides,  in 
1906  tank  steamers  carrying  57  cargoes  in  bulk,  or- 
dinary steamers  to  carry  94  cargoes  of  case  oil,  and 
sailing  vessels  to  carry  50  cargoes  of  case  oil.  It  is 
not  merely  the  question  of  supplying  the  great  foreign 
demand  that  occupies  this  branch  of  the  company's 

166 


THE    STANDARD    OIL   COMPANY 

business,  but  In  meeting  the  opposition  from  the 
products  of  the  oil  wells  of  Russia,  Galicia,  Rou- 
manla,  the  Dutch  East  Indies,  Burma,  as  well  as  the 
Scotch  shale  oil.  The  trade  calls  for  much  tankage 
and  warehousing,  office  force  and  labor  abroad,  em- 
ploying in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  South  America,  and 
Oceanica  over  12,000  men.  In  all,  the  labor  army  of 
the  company  numbers  over  65,700  men. 

The  perfecting  of  the  necessary  organization  for 
the  company's  purposes  has  been  a  great  and  continu- 
ous labor.  It  is  probably  true  that  no  other  very  large 
concern  in  the  industrial  or  commercial  world  has 
had  applied  to  its  conduct  an  overseeing  so  constant 
and  critical  on  the  part  of  its  highest  leaders.  Here 
is  a  directorate  that  directs,  an  organization  that 
from  head  to  foot  includes  no  drones.  Daily  its  exec- 
utives meet  in  an  executive  session  and  promptly  de- 
cide all  questions  of  business  policy  and  practice. 
The  condition  of  the  business  in  all  its  parts  is  exam- 
ined all  the  time  with  care;  its  court  of  appeals  is 
always  open. 

In  the  handling  of  this  grand  army  of  labor  with 
its  chiefs,  its  subchiefs,  its  captains  and  subalterns, 
together  with  the  men  under  their  command,  the 
method  of  promotion  by  merit  is  strictly  observed, 
furnishing  a  "  civil-service  "  system  antedating  any- 
thing of  the  kind  in  American  civil  life  and  continuing 
in  unbroken  succession  to  this  day.  And  never  was 
employer  better  served.  The  old  idea  that  loyalty 
in  the  employee  was  almost  wholly  dependent  on  the 

167 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

personality  at  the  top  of  the  pyramid  of  labor  has 
been  exploded.  In  the  Standard  Oil  Company  he  has 
found  a  corporate  employer  with  a  fixed  policy  of 
friendly  regard.  Every  employee  is  made  to  feel 
that  all  the  possibilities  of  rise  in  the  scale  of  posi- 
tion and  remuneration  are  open  to  him.  He  has  the 
example  all  around  him  of  men  whose  rise  to  places 
of  high  emolument  and  responsibility  has  been  con- 
ditioned solely  on  their  skill  and  loyalty.  He  knows 
that  a  pension  waits  on  faithful  service. 

What  large  share  of  the  success  of  the  company 
is  due  to  the  solidarity  and  devotion  of  its  employees 
has  never  been  properly  estimated  by  the  public.  All 
disputes  as  to  wages  whenever  they  have  arisen  have 
been  amicably  adjusted.  Freedom  from  strikes  has 
been  one  source  of  economy;  a  determination  that  no 
day's  task  completed  shall  make  a  smaller  showing 
than  that  of  any  other  day  has  been  a  continual 
source  of  gain.  And  all  this  because  the  fellow-feel- 
ing of  man  for  man  has  never  departed  from  it.  At- 
tacks from  without  have  always  drawn  the  ranks 
closer  together  and  the  forward  march  has  been  con- 
tinued shoulder  to  shoulder  to  a  cheery  tune  at  a 
lively  step. 

Whatever  share  this  democratic  union  of  mutu- 
ally respecting  employers  and  employed  has  had  in 
the  company's  success,  it  is,  however,  second  In  place 
to  the  record  of  its  relation  to  the  millions  of  the  con- 
sumers of  Its  products  in  thirty-seven  years  in  every 
quarter  of  the  world.     There  is  the  supreme  test  of 

i68 


THE    STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY 

abidingly  honest  quality  in  what  is  sold  and  what  is 
cheerfully  paid  for.  That  record  stands  undimmed. 
In  the  conduct  of  its  enterprises  and  its  business 
the  company  has  been  naturally  brought  in  contact 
with  the  business  world  all  over  the  globe,  yet  its 
share  of  differences  with  individuals  or  groups  has 
been  exceedingly  small,  and  its  commercial  litigation 
infinitesimal.  Consequently,  in  the  commercial  world 
anywhere  an  agreement,  bargain,  or  contract  with  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  in  any  of  its  branches  stands 
among  the  most  desirable.  In  its  career,  the  coming 
to  its  side  and  entering  its  fold  of  men  who  began  by 
opposing  it  and  ended  by  championing  it,  has  been  a 
commonplace.  Many  of  such  men  are  in  charge  of 
its  fortunes  to-day.  When  these  things  are  con- 
sidered it  will  be  understood  how  complacently  the 
attacks,  often  bitter  and  malignant,  of  its  rivals  in 
the  oil  trade  have  been  endured.  It  has  consoled  the 
company  when  the  attacks  were  taken  up  by  public 
men  and  newspapers,  for  if  the  company  was  hon- 
ored and  trusted  where  most  of  its  credit  and  reputa- 
tion were  at  stake,  namely  in  the  sifting  and  search- 
ing process  of  daily,  weekly,  year-in-and-year-out 
dealing  with  the  acute,  unsentimental  men  of  business, 
it  could  withstand  the  assaults  made  in  Ignorance  and 
malice.  The  magnitude  of  its  concerns  excited  envy 
perhaps;  Its  progress  needlessly  alarmed  the  theoret- 
ical doctrinaires,  when  its  honest  purpose  and  con- 
duct should  have  reassured  anyone  of  open  mind  and 
average  intelligence  taking  the  pains  to  Inform  hlm- 

169 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

self.  Even  when  made  the  target  of  a  law  which  the 
President  of  the  United  States  recently  characterized 
as  "  the  road  to  business  chaos  if  administered  in  Its 
letter  and  spirit,"  the  Standard  Oil  Company  has  gone 
peaceably  on  its  way,  confident  in  the  return  of  the 
reign  of  good  sense  in  the  country. 

The  Standard  Oil  Company's  advance  has  been 
logical;  its  triumph  over  obstacles  whether  natural, 
artificial,  or  merely  revengeful,  has  been  the  result 
of  calm  persistence  in  grappling  upon  strictly  business 
footing  with  whatever  problem  comes  before  it. 

To  every  assault  a  proper  response  has  been 
given,  and  many  untruths  regarding  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  have  been  refuted  over  and  over  again  when 
repeated  at  the  Instance  of  business  rivals  and  mis- 
guided newspapers.  But  the  steady  growth  of  the 
Standard  Oil  business  Is  the  best  answer  to  all  who 
calumniate  It.  A  business  which  is  not  conducted 
on  the  highest  level  of  commercial  morality  never  has 
long  survived.  Commercial  morality  Is  the  Ideal  of 
civilized  peoples.  The  necessary  conclusion  Is  that 
if  the  Standard  Oil  Company  had  failed  to  observe 
the  moral  law  It  would,  at  the  end  of  thirty-eight 
years,  have  a  story  to  tell  differing  widely  from  the 
record  of  success,  confidence,  and  esteem  In  the  busi- 
ness world  of  which  It  can  proudly  boast. 

An  examination  of  the  United  States  Steel  and 
other  great  corporations  would  show  results  equally 
astonishing  In  the  upbuilding  of  our  country  and  sug- 
gest the  question  as  to  what  possible  gain  Is  to  be 

170 


THE    STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY 

realized  by  embarrassing  or  destroying  such  tremen- 
dous interests.  They  are  too  important  for  malice 
or  revenge  to  trifle  with,  or  for  impulsively  made 
laws  to  invade  with  exactions  which  if  successfully  en- 
forced would  be  destructive. 

I  have  given  a  brief  and  imperfect  outline  of  one 
of  the  so-called  trusts  and  the  one  most  bitterly,  as 
it  is  most  unjustly,  assailed,  to  show  the  magnitude 
to  which  modern  business  methods  have  grown,  and 
how  utterly  puerile  is  the  thought  of  restraining  them 
and  putting  them  under  the  supervision  of  the  poli- 
ticians' commissions  or  into  the  hands  of  their 
receivers ! 

The  Standard  Oil  Company  Is  accused  of  receiv- 
ing rebates  from  railways  in  its  earlier  history  and 
thereby  crowding  out  competitors.  And  much  is 
made  of  rebates  on  its  competitors'  goods.  In  the 
early  days  of  the  oil  production  every  shipper  by 
rail  got  what  rebates  he  could;  it  was  the  general 
practice  to  give  them  by  the  railroads  and  accept  them 
by  shippers.  In  1877  an  agreement  was  entered  into 
by  the  Standard  Oil  Company  with  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  by  which  the  Standard  undertook 
the  duty  of  "  evener  "  in  a  new  freight  arrangement 
which  apportioned  the  oil  to  be  carried  among  the 
interested  railroads  in  certain  agreed  proportions, 
and  for  this  service  (an  onerous  and  exacting  one) 
the  Standard  Oil  Company  was  to  receive  a  commis- 
sion of  ten  per  cent  on  all  such  freight  carried,  the 
terms  to  be  open  to  all.     This  arrangement  lasted 

171 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

about  two  years.  (See  Montague  on  "  The  Rise  and 
Progress  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company.") 

This  arrangement  was  not  confined  to  the  Stand- 
ard Oil  Company,  but  was  one  of  those  crude  at- 
tempts which  characterized  the  experiments  of  the 
railroads  in  efforts  to  adjust  the  competition  between 
themselves  as  railroads  and  between  themselves  and 
their  patrons  who  furnished  different  amounts  of 
patronage,  thought  at  that  time  by  all  roads  and  by 
about  all  business  to  call  for  discrimination.  It  took 
the  form  of  rebates  all  over  the  country  with  all 
great  shippers  where  there  was  any  competition  of 
traffic. 

Since  rebates  were  made  Illegal  by  the  passage  of 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Act  in  1887  no  rebates  have 
been  asked  or  accepted  by  the  Standard  Oil  Company. 
The  recent  and  pending  lawsuits  against  the  Standard, 
as,  for  instance,  the  Chicago  &  Alton  Railroad  case  be- 
fore Judge  Landis,  have  not  charged  rebating,  as  the 
newspapers  constantly  fall  Into  the  error  of  saying, 
but  aver  the  acceptance  of  rates  not  listed  and  lower 
than  what  they  term  was  the  legal  rate.  The  de- 
fense naturally  differs  In  the  several  cases,  but  in  gen- 
eral it  is  a  denial  that  the  rates  were  exclusive  or 
secret  or  Illegal,  and  all  the  cases  turn  on  minute  tech- 
nicalities put  forward  by  the  government.  This  I 
will  take  up  more  fully  In  another  chapter. 

The  greatest  crime  alleged  against  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  seems  to  be  Its  gigantic  success  by  the 
genius  of  Its  management  and  the  marvelous  resources 

172 


THE    STANDARD    OIL   COMPANY 

and  opportunities  which  it  has  discovered  and  utihzed 
in  the  vast  regions  of  its  operations. 

It  has  done  a  business  which  its  accusers  were  try- 
ing to  do,  and  its  great  profits  have  been  the  reward 
of  enterprise  demanded  by  a  tremendous  age.  To 
condemn  such  a  commercial  success  is  to  oppose  the 
movements  of  a  new  age,  which  in  all  things,  except 
the  capability  of  the  agitators  to  appreciate  it,  is  sup- 
planting the  passing  one  in  nothing  more  startlingly 
than  in  the  magnitudes  of  business  enterprise  and  en- 
deavor. They  are  only  proportional  instruments  and 
results  of  new  genius  and  forces. 

If  there  are  tremendous  profits  they  are  upon  an 
enormous  business  which  has  not  been  capitalized  as 
fast  as  it  has  accumulated  and  the  increase  of  which  is 
due  to  peculiar  conditions  of  the  natural  product,  the 
astounding  developments  of  corporate  business  which 
has  legitimately  succeeded  the  old  forms  of  destructive 
competition,  and  the  remarkable  genius  of  the  men 
who  undertook  the  petroleum  business  when  it  was  in 
a  state  of  chaos  and  neither  producer  nor  manufac- 
turer was  receiving  a  profit  and  the  consumer  was 
paying  four  times  the  present  prices. 


CHAPTER    XI 

STANDARD   OIL    DEFENDED   BY    ECONOMIC    WRITERS 

AS  the  Standard  Oil  Company  has  been  the 
victim  of  such  a  blind  prejudice  created  by  a 
generation  of  venomous  attack  originating  In 
the  most  severely  contested  competition  the  business 
world  has  known,  it  is  only  just  that  its  methods 
and  practices  should  have  a  hearing  from  impartial 
men  competent  to  discuss  them  upon  their  merits. 

All  over  the  country  there  are  editors,  fair  enough 
upon  other  questions,  to  whom  the  very  name  of  the 
Standard  Oil  is  the  red  rag.  Upon  seeing  it,  the 
consequences  immediately  follow.  They  are  thrown 
into  a  rage  and  talk  In  superlatives.  They  know  ab- 
solutely nothing  of  the  great  corporation  from  the 
inside  or  from  unprejudiced  sources.  They  speak 
of  honorable  men  as  "  monsters,"  men  whose  per- 
sonal integrity  no  man  can  impeach,  whose  names  are 
unquestioned  bonds  around  the  globe,  men  who  have 
the  profound  respect  of  their  neighbors  as  well  as  of 
the  business  world.  These  editors  talk  of  men  who 
are  as  Incapable  of  dishonest  practices,  and  who  are 

174 


STANDARD    OIL    DEFENDED 

as  high-minded  as  they  claim  to  be  themselves,  as 
scoundrels  to  whom  no  terms  of  obloquy  are  ade- 
quate. They  condemn  business  methods  which  they 
never  have  examined  except  in  the  statements  of  the 
company's  enemies. 

Men  with  no  other  interest  in  this  corporation 
than  to  know  the  truth  and  examine  the  plain  facts, 
have  studied  its  business  methods  earnestly  and  thor- 
oughly, to  come  away  convinced  that  the  assaults 
upon  the  company  are  without  justice  or  reason. 
They  are  the  result  of  a  gigantic  misapprehension, 
perhaps  due  to  the  fault  of  the  company  in  not  vig- 
orously answering  accusers  who  have  assailed  them 
in  malice  or  ignorance. 

Certain  well-known  economic  writers  have  exam- 
ined some  of  the  recent  malignant  charges  against 
this  corporation. 

"  Jasper  Jefferson,"  an  editorial  writer  upon 
finance  and  economics  in  Leslie's  freekly,  a  paper 
that  cannot  be  accused  of  a  partial  leaning  toward  this 
corporation,  has  lately  written  upon  what  he  calls  a 
"  New  Light  on  the  Standard  Oil  Company  "  the  fol- 
lowing : 

"  Every  attack  on  an  American  industry  gives  our 
foreign  competitors  the  ammunition  they  seek  with 
which  to  destroy  American  competition.  At  the  risk 
of  being  assailed  as  the  defender  of  a  defenseless 
trust,  we  recall  one  instance:  The  natural-oil  indus- 
try of  India  is  monopolized  by  the  Burma  Oil  Com- 
pany.    Instead  of  being  antagonized  by  the  Indian 

175 


TliE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

government,  this  monopoly  has  the  latter's  support  to 
such  an  extent  that  it  has  refused  to  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  the  right  to  produce  oil,  and  has  even  de- 
nied to  the  American  corporation  the  right  to  erect 
tankage  for  storing  oils.  I  his  outrageous  discrimi- 
nation against  a  leading  industrial  corporation  of  the 
United  States  by  the  government  of  India  is  based 
on  the  intimation  that  the  United  States  government 
has  classed  the  Standard  Oil  Company  as  an  outlaw, 
and  therefore  it  is  not  entitled  to  consideration.  The 
result  of  this  discrimination  is  felt  by  the  people  of 
India,  for  it  is  well  known  that  the  quality  of  oil  sold 
in  that  country  is  the  poorest,  while  the  price  is  the 
highest,  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  world. 

"  This  is  a  good  time  to  remind  the  American 
people  that  the  fight  against  the  Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany is  not  limited  to  the  United  States.  It  is  going 
on  everywhere,  because  Its  remarkable  success  makes 
it  a  shining  mark  for  all  competitors.  The  produc- 
tion of  petroleum  in  Russia,  Roumania,  India,  Ga- 
licia,  Sumatra,  and  Borneo,  in  the  aggregate,  is 
greater  than  that  in  the  United  States;  yet  the  Amer- 
ican company  has  been  able  to  meet  this  formidable 
competition,  and  recently  dispatches  from  London 
have  announced  that  it  has  finally  succeeded  in  win- 
ning the  great  struggle  for  the  supremacy  of  Amer- 
ican petroleum  in  the  markets  of  Europe.  This 
triumph,  in  which  every  patriotic  citizen  of  this  coun- 
try should  rejoice,  has  compelled  an  arrangement  with 
the  foreign  producers  by  which  a  certain  percentage 
of  the  business  has  been  conceded  to  American  pe- 
troleum by  that  most  formidable  opposition  of  for- 
eign-oil producers,  headed  by  the  Rothschilds,  the 
Nobels,  and  the  German  banks,  representing  oil 
companies  with  shares  aggregating  over  $500,000,- 

176 


STANDARD    OIL    DEFENDED 

ooo  in  market  value.  Have  the  people  of  the 
United  States  reason  to  be  ashamed  that  an  Amer- 
ican corporation  has  been  able  to  achieve  such  an 
astonishing  success  abroad?  What  other  set  of  men 
or  aggregation  of  capital  has  ever  won  anything  like 
such  a  victory  in  Europe  for  an  American  product 
created  by  American  labor? 

"  Attacks  on  the  Standard  Oil  Company  have 
been  instigated  in  nearly  every  instance  by  the  greed 
or  envy  of  its  competitors.  Very  recently,  in  a  hearing 
at  Washington  before  the  Interstate  Commerce  Com- 
mission, an  independent  oil  refiner,  Mr.  Byles,  of  Oil 
City,  while  complaining  against  the  Standard  Oil 
Company,  admitted  that  when  he  started  in  business 
he  had  a  capital  of  only  $10,000  and  that  he  was 
now  worth  $300,000.  This  does  not  look  as  if  the 
Standard  Oil  was  driving  its  competitors  out  of 
business.  Mr.  Byles,  according  to  the  press  dis- 
patches, while  complaining  of  rebates  given  to  the 
Standard  Oil  Company,  admitted  that  he  had  asked 
for  and  obtained  rebates  for  himself. 

"  The  burden  of  complaint  against  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  has  been  that  it  was  favored  in  its  early 
history  by  generous  rebates  by  railroads  which  it 
patronized.  It  is  not  charged  that  these  rebates  are 
now  being  granted.  The  fact  is  that  they  were  long 
since  discontinued.  Their  origin  was  not  due  to  the 
Standard  Oil  Company.  This  was  made  clear  by 
Secretary  of  State  Root  in  his  recent  lecture  at  Yale 
College,  when  he  said  truthfully,  and  no  doubt  to  the 
amazement  of  his  hearers,  that  '  Thirty  years  ago  all 
railroads  gave  special  rates  to  shippers.  It  was  by 
giving  special  rates  that  railroad  companies  induced 
people  to  build  factories,  packing  houses,  and  eleva- 
tors, and  a  great  variety  of  other  business  establish- 

177 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

ments  along  the  lines  of  their  roads.  That  was  the 
way  that  they  huilt  up  their  business  and  built  up  the 
country  through  which  the  roads  ran.'  Is  the  Stand- 
ard Oil  to  be  blamed  that  it  took  advantage  of  the 
same  opportunities  that  were  given  other  industries 
thus  to  build  up  its  business?  If  not,  what  justifica- 
tion is  there  for  the  statement  In  the  recent  report  of 
Commissioner  of  Corporations  Smith  that  '  the  scan- 
dalous railway  discriminations  obtained  by  the  Stand- 
ard in  its  earlier  years  as  against  its  competitors  did 
more  than  all  the  other  causes  together  to  establish 
it  in  its  controlling  position  '  ? 

"  This  differs  entirely  from  the  analysis  of  the 
situation  which  our  astute  Secretary  of  State  lias 
given.  Nor  did  Secretary  Root  In  his  scholarly 
speech  at  Yale  hesitate  to  say  that  if  the  facilities  of 
transportation  enabled  combinations  to  be  made,  for 
the  purpose  of  overcoming  competition,  restricting 
production,  and  reckoning  prices,  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  '  On  the  other  hand,  labor  organizations, 
designed  for  the  just  purpose  of  securing  fair  treat- 
ment as  to  employment,  wages  and  hours  and  condi- 
tions of  work,  are,  on  their  part,  endeavoring  to  put 
up  prices,  restrict  production,  and  drive  out  competi- 
tion by  stringent  rules  which  prohibit  any  member 
from  doing  more  than  a  specified  amount  of  work 
each  day  under  penalty  of  expulsion,  and  which  pro- 
hibit the  employment  of  anyone  not  a  member  of  the 
union,  under  penalty  of  a  strike.'  Has  anything  been 
charged  against  any  combination  of  capital  that  is 
more  monopolistic? 

"  Commissioner  Smith  admits  that  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  Is  not  a  monopoly.  He  admits  that  the 
system  of  railroad  rebating  has  been  substantially 
abandoned,  and  he  acknowledges  that  seventy-five  In- 

178 


STANDARD    OIL    DEFENDED 

dependent  companies  are  engaged  in  the  refining  of 
crude  oil  in  different  parts  of  the  country.  Two  of 
these  are  large  concerns,  the  Pure  Oil  Company  and 
the  Tidewater  Oil  Company,  both  located  at  the  sea- 
board and  both  having  their  own  pipe  lines.  The 
other  independent  refineries  are  located  in  the  oil 
regions,  where  no  pipe  lines  are  needed,  and  they 
enjoy  many  advantages  because  of  this  location;  yet 
Commissioner  Smith  denounces  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  most  particularly  because  of  its  pipe-line 
system  and  the  rates  it  charges  for  the  transmission 
of  oil  for  independent  refiners.  The  Standard  Oil 
Company  has  a  number  of  pipe  lines  which  are  and 
always  have  been  common  carriers.  The  rates  estab- 
lished hav^e  been  in  proportion  to  the  railroad  rates. 
Its  pipe  lines  that  are  not  common  carriers  are  lo- 
cated largely  in  the  Indian  Territor}%  where  the 
rights  of  way  were  purchased  by  the  company,  and 
where  the  pipe  lines  are,  therefore,  claimed  by  the 
Standard  Oil  as  its  private  property  just  as  much  as 
the  pipes  laid  to  its  refineries  for  carrying  water.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  all  of  these  pipe  lines  were 
built  by  the  company  for  the  purpose  of  supplying 
its  own  works,  just  as  its  competitors  have  built  their 
lines  in  this  and  foreign  countries. 

"  The  regulation  of  the  production  and  sale  of 
petroleum  and  its  products  became  necessary  because 
petroleum  in  this  and  in  other  countries  was  produced 
in  excess  of  the  demand.  The  production  of  this 
country  alone  to-day  is  about  400,000  barrels  per 
diem,  while  the  consumption  (that  is,  the  part  con- 
verted into  salable  products)  is  only  half  of  this,  the 
balance  being  wastefully  used  in  some  instances,  as 
in  California  for  the  making  of  roads,  and  in  other 
places  as  a  substitute  for  fuel.     It  is  to  the  advantage 

179 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

of  the  producer  to  have  a  steady  and  reliable  market, 
and  not  a  surplus  and  a  declining  market. 

"  The  aim  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  con- 
stantly has  been  to  cheapen  the  cost  of  oil  to  the 
consumer,  and  to  this  end  a  most  important  factor 
has  been  the  cheapening  of  the  cost  of  transporta- 
tion by  the  construction  of  pipe  lines.  At  first  these 
lines  were  experimental,  and  it  was  a  serious  question 
for  a  time  whether  the  large  amount  of  money  in- 
vested in  them  would  not  be  lost.  It  was  this  com- 
pany which  established  delivery  tanks  in  all  parts  of 
the  world,  filling  them  by  the  use  of  tank  cars,  and 
making  distributions  to  the  retailer  by  the  assistance 
of  tank  wagons,  thus  saving  the  cost  of  a  smaller 
package.  It  is  an  established  fact  that,  with  the  de- 
crease in  the  supply  of  timber  available  for  the 
manufacture  of  barrel  staves,  it  would  have  been 
impossible  to-day  to  provide  sufficient  barrels  for 
transporting  oil  to  the  various  markets  of  the  world. 
Hence  the  creation   of  the   delivery   tanks. 

"  It  has  been  the  constant  aim  of  the  Standard  Oil 
Company  to  increase  the  uses  of  petroleum  so  as  to 
utilize  the  surplus  product.  It  undertook  the  manu- 
facture of  oil-consuming  stoves,  lamps,  and  even  of 
wicks  for  the  lamps,  so  that  it  might  supply  these 
at  cost,  and  absolutely  without  profit,  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  stimulating  the  consumption  of  oil.  It  is 
estimated  that  the  sale  of  oil  stoves,  oil  heaters,  and 
lamps  amounts  annually  to  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
dollars.  The  advertising  of  the  Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany naturally  is  for  the  benefit  of  not  only  the  pro- 
ducer of  oil,  but  also  for  the  benefit  of  its  competitors, 
as  it  makes  an  additional  demand  for  the  product. 
The  company  is  therefore  doing  pioneer  work.  In- 
vestments made  by  the  company  in  oil  regions  which 

i8o 


STANDARD    OIL    DEFENDED 

have  become  exhausted  are  an  approximate  loss.  It 
has  empty  tanks  in  the  abandoned  oil  fields  of  the 
two  States  of  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio  which,  in  the 
prosperous  tide  of  oil  production,  would  contain  the 
enormous  amount  of  40,000,000  barrels  of  oil. 

"  The  public  has  become  so  accustomed  to  at- 
tacks upon  our  great  industries,  or  those  of  them  that 
have  been  singled  out  for  abuse,  that  it  fails  to  give 
fair  consideration  to  both  sides  of  the  question.  It 
is  accustomed  to  think  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company 
as  the  property  of  a  few  men.  The  Commissioner 
of  Corporations,  Mr.  Smith,  in  his  report  makes  this 
error.  The  stock  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  is 
owned  by  about  6,000  shareholders.  The  business 
has  been  built  up,  it  is  true,  by  a  few  of  the  pioneers 
in  the  oil  industry,  and  its  magnificent  proportions 
must  be  regarded  as  an  evidence  of  their  rare  skill 
and  ability.  If  they  have  sought,  by  every  legitimate 
means  in  their  power,  to  overcome  competition,  to 
take  advantage  of  every  favorable  circumstance  to 
develop  their  business  (which  though  larger  in  the 
aggregate  is  less  in  percentage  than  in  past  years), 
and  to  secure  as  much  of  the  world's  trade  as  they 
could,  they  have  done  only  what  every  merchant  who 
succeeds  has  done,  and  must  do,  to  achieve  success. 
As  the  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Labor,  the  Hon. 
Oscar  S.  Straus,  said  before  the  Association  of  Manu- 
facturers in  New  York  recently :  '  It  is  not  within  the 
power  or  proper  sphere  of  the  government  to  equal- 
ize competitors,  but  it  is  within  the  power  and  proper 
sphere  of  the  government  to  equalize  the  opportuni- 
ties of  competitors.'  No  one  can  find  fault  with  this 
broad  statement  by  a  Cabinet  officer,  himself  one  of 
the  most  successful  merchants  of  New  York  City,  and 
therefore  well  qualified  to  speak." 
13  181 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

The  Financial  Chronicle,  which  cannot  be  ac- 
cused of  a  bias  toward  the  Standard  Oil  Company, 
pubHshed  May  25,  1907,  the  following  editorial  on 
Commissioner  Herbert  Knox  Smith's  first  report  on 
the  petroleum  industry,  submitted  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Chicago  trial: 

"  The  report  which  the  Commissioner  of  Corpo- 
rations, Herbert  Knox  Smith,  has  just  submitted  to 
the  President  on  the  petroleum  industry,  and  par- 
ticularly the  Standard  Oil  Company's  share  in  the 
same,  deals  with  some  matters  of  wide  interest.  Of 
still  wider  moment,  however,  are  the  Commissioner's 
recommendations.  These  propose  some  novel  rules 
and  principles.  It  is  important  to  every  man  to  know, 
therefore,  whether  the  proposals  are  founded  in 
equity  and  justice  and  would  be  in  accordance  with 
that  spirit  of  fair  dealing  under  which  enterprise  in 
trade  and  industry  has  so  long  flourished  In  this  coun- 
try. 

"  We  are  not  concerned  to  defend  the  Standard 
Oil  Company.  This  much-criticised  corporation  ap- 
parently has  no  friends,  and  to  the  student  of  affairs 
it  seems  as  if  it  did  not  desire  any.  What  is  more,  it 
does  not  appear  to  suffer  much  for  the  lack  of  friends. 
Despite  the  attacks  made  upon  it  and  which  have 
emanated  from  every  quarter,  its  business  continues 
to  thrive  and  prosper.  The  secret  of  this  Is  well  un- 
derstood by  all  those  who  have  watched  Its  rise  and 
progress.  Its  unrivaled  business  methods  are  at  the 
bottom  of  it. 

"  The  report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Corpora- 
tions, which  is  based  on  the  investigation  made  by 
Commissioner    Garfield,    sweepingly    condemns    the 

182 


STANDARD    OIL    DEFENDED 

company,  and  yet  in  the  main  is  a  tribute  to  the 
keenness  of  its  methods — all  the  more  striking  inas- 
much as  the  Commissioner  furnishes  this  tribute  and 
testimony  unwittingly.  1  he  popular  supposition,  no 
doubt,  has  been  that  the  company  held  a  monopoly  of 
the  oil  lands  in  the  United  States.  Not  so.  The  re- 
port tells  us  that  out  of  a  total  production  of  crude 
oil  in  the  United  States  in  1905  of  approximately 
135,000,000  barrels,  not  over  one  sixth  came  from 
wells  owned  by  the  Standard  Company  or  affiliated 
concerns;  furthermore,  that  in  no  one  of  the  great 
fields  did  it  produce  over  fifty  per  cent  of  the  total. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  stated  that  in  1904  it  '  refined  over 
eighty-four  per  cent  of  the  crude  oil  run  through  re- 
fineries; produced  more  than  eighty-six  per  cent  of  the 
country's  total  output  of  illuminating  oil;  maintained 
a  similar  proportion  of  the  export  trade  in  illuminat- 
ing oil,  and  transported  through  pipe  lines  nearly 
nine  tenths  of  the  crude  oil  of  the  older  fields  and 
ninety-eight  per  cent  of  the  crude  oil,  of  the  mid- 
continent  or  Kansas  Territory  field.' 

"  To  what,  then,  does  it  owe  its  supremacy  and 
success?  Commissioner  Smith  says  'that  its  growth 
and  present  power  rests  primarily  on  the  control  of 
the  transportation  facilities.'  What  are  its  trans- 
portation advantages?  Until  within  the  last  twelve 
or  fifteen  months  the  average  man,  basing  his  opin- 
ions upon  the  statements  appearing  in  the  newspapers 
and  made  in  legislative  halls,  would  doubtless  have 
asserted  that  these  advantages  consisted  of  secret  re- 
bates and  concessions  in  rates,  which  were  withheld 
from  its  competitors.  The  Commissioner's  report 
charges  it  with  having  been  the  recipient  of  railroad 
favoritism  in  the  past,  but  assigns  its  present  advan- 
tage to  control  of  the  pipe-line  facilities.     The  pipe 

183 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

lines  are  declared  to  be  the  only  effective  means  of 
marketing  most  of  the  oil,  so  that  these  give  as  com- 
plete a  control  of  crude  production  as  by  direct  title 
to  the  fields,  with  the  result  that  the  Standard  is  al- 
most the  sole  purchaser  and  its  daily  quotations  for 
oil  are  the  '  official  price  '  in  most  of  these  fields. 

"  The  fact  should  be  carefully  noted  that,  accord- 
ing to  this  official  document,  the  company's  advantage 
comes,  not  from  its  influence  or  control  over  the  rail- 
roads, which  are  in  every  way  public  agencies,  but 
comes  from  its  pipe  lines,  which  are  solely  a  private 
investment  incident  to  the  development  of  its  busi- 
ness. In  other  words,  it  has  its  own  private  agencies, 
built  up  and  developed  with  much  skill  and  foresight, 
which  it  is  using  and  which  are  giving  It  such  a  great 
advantage.  The  report  observes  that  the  Standard's 
pipe-line  system  in  1899  was  stated  by  leading  repre- 
sentatives of  the  company  to  comprise  35,000  miles 
of  pipes  of  different  sizes  and  to  represent  an  invest- 
ment of  $50,000,000.  This,  it  is  remarked,  was 
probably  an  overstatement  as  to  investment.  Since 
then  the  addition  to  the  mileage  and  to  the  actual 
investment,  it  is  declared,  has  been  probably  not  less 
than  thirty  per  cent.  Through  this  immense  pipe-line 
system,  oil  is  actually  piped  the  full  distance  from  In- 
dian Territory  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  It  is  added 
that  the  lines  are  so  connected  that  any  refiner}^  of  the 
Standard  from  Kansas  to  the  seaboard  can  be  sup- 
plied, if  desired,  with  oil  from  any  one  of  the  four 
great  fields.  Only  one  competitor  of  the  Standard 
has  attained  any  importance  in  trunk-line  transporta- 
tion in  any  of  the  four  fields,  namely  the  Pure  Oil 
Company,  and  its  length  of  trunk-line  system  of  pipe 
lines  is  given  as  less  than  550  miles. 

"  The  other  charges  and  allegations  against  the 
184 


STANDARD    OIL    DEFENDED 

Standard  Company  are  of  much  the  same  nature  and 
bear  further  testimony  to  Its  unexcelled  business 
methods.  Thus  the  company  has  taken  advantage  of 
the  opportunity  offered  by  its  pipe-line  system  to  select 
favorable  refining  localities.  Whereas  most  of  its 
competitors,  because  of  their  inability  to  construct  or 
maintain  similar  pipe-line  service  or  to  use  the  Stand- 
ard's pipe  lines,  are  compelled  to  locate  their  re- 
fineries near  the  oil  fields,  and  then  ship  their  refined 
oil  long  distances  by  rail  at  heav^y  cost;  the  Standard 
Oil  Company, on  the  other  hand, has  refineries  at  'nu- 
merous strategic  points.'  These  last  give  it  a  very 
advantageous  position  for  the  distribution  of  its 
refined  product  to  markets,  not  only  in  this  country 
but  abroad  as  well.  By  means  of  its  pipe-line  system 
it  is  able  to  get  crude  oil  to  its  refineries  at  compara- 
tively small  cost,  while  the  distribution  of  its  refining 
plants  greatly  reduces  the  average  length  of  the  rail 
haul  for  its  refined  products,  with  consequent  reduc- 
tion in  freight  expense. 

"  Another  expedient,  it  seems,  of  which  the  com- 
pany avails  itself  is  the  tank  system,  whereby  it  is 
enabled  to  handle  its  oil  in  bulk  from  the  refinery  to 
the  small  dealer.  Tank  wagons,  it  is  asserted,  were 
used  by  it  in  eighty-one  per  cent  of  the  towns  and  by 
the  independents  in  only  38.6  per  cent.  The  relative 
greater  use  of  the  bulk  system  of  delivery  by  the 
Standard  than  by  independent  concerns  has  an  impor- 
tant bearing,  it  is  declared,  on  the  degree  of  monopoly 
power  enjoyed  by  the  Standard  Oil  Company.  In  the 
first  place,  the  shipper  of  oil  in  barrels  or  other  sniall 
packages  pays  freight  on  the  weight  of  the  container 
as  well  as  on  the  contents,  whereas  a  tank-car  shipper 
pays  only  on  the  weight  of  the  oil.  Again,  freight 
must  be  paid  on  the  empty  barrel  when  retained,  or, 

185 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

if  sold  without  returning,  there  is  often  some  loss. 
Furthermore,  the  cost  of  teaming  oil  in  barrels  or 
other  packages  after  it  has  been  delivered  at  railroad 
stations  is  often  greater  than  the  corresponding  cost 
of  local  delivery  in  bulk.  Finally,  the  bulk  system  is 
greatly  preferred  by  retail  dealers  as  being  cleaner 
and  safer. 

"  It  furthermore  appears  that  the  Standard  makes 
direct  sales  to  retail  dealers,  and  this,  in  conjunction 
with  the  advantage  of  bulk  delivery,  favors,  it  is  ar- 
gued, the  practice  of  price  discrimination  so  destruc- 
tive of  competition.  If  the  Standard  Oil  Company 
sold  its  oil  through  jobbers,  the  report  says,  it  would 
have  to  charge  substantially  the  same  net  price  for  all 
parts  of  its  product,  as  the  logical  result  of  a  large 
wholesale  business  is  to  equalize  prices  after  allow- 
ing for  cost  of  delivery.  But  we  may  be  permitted 
to  ask,  is  the  Standard  Oil  Company  the  only  enter- 
prise that  is  seeking  to  eliminate  the  jobber  or  middle- 
man and  thus  get  goods  cheaper  to  the  consumer? 

"  But  what  remedy  is  suggested  for  this  condition 
of  things?  Nothing  less  than  depriving  the  company 
of  the  fruits  of  its  skill  and  enterprise.  Commis- 
sioner Smith  would  even  go  further  than  Congress 
has  gone  in  the  attempt  to  regulate  the  matter.  By 
the  Hepburn  Rate  Bill  of  last  year,  it  will  be  recalled, 
the  pipe  lines  are  brought  under  the  provisions  of  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Law  and  made  subject  to  the 
power  and  dominion  of  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission.  Commissioner  Smith's  suggestion  goes 
beyond  this.  He  would  not  only  make  the  Standard's 
pipe  lines  available  to  all  producers  and  shippers  but 
he  would  compel  it  to  fix  rates  which  would  allow 
little  more  than  a  bare  return  on  its  investment. 
Here  is  what  he  has  to  say  on  this  point: 

i86 


STANDARD    OIL    DEFENDED 

"  '  The  bureau  estimates  that  the  operating  cost 
of  transporting  crude  oil  from  the  several  originating 
points  of  the  trunk-pipe  lines  in  the  Appalachian  field 
to  the  several  tidewater  termini — New  York  Harbor, 
Philadelphia,  Marcus  Hook,  and  Baltimore — aver- 
ages about  3^  cents  per  barrel  of  42  gallons.  Add- 
ing an  allowance  of  depreciation  of  five  per  cent  on 
the  cost  of  reproducing  the  lines  (which  is  sufficient, 
with  compound  interest,  to  replace  the  entire  plant  in 
fourteen  years),  the  total  cost  of  transportation  be- 
comes a  little  less  than  65  cents  per  barrel.  A 
return  of  ten  per  cent  on  the  estimated  cost  of  repro- 
ducing the  lines  would  amount  to  about  5  cents  per 
barrel  transported,  which,  added  to  the  cost  of  trans- 
portation, gives  a  total  of  about  1 1  cents  per  barrel. 
The  trunk-line  rate  from  these  points  in  the  Appa- 
lachian field  to  Philadelphia  is  39  cents. 

"  *  The  operating  expense  of  transporting  crude 
oil  from  Lima,  Ohio — the  center  of  the  Lima-In- 
diana field — through  trunk  lines  to  the  seaboard  is 
estimated  at  about  5^  cents  per  barrel;  adding  an 
allowance  for  depreciation  at  five  per  cent,  the  cost 
of  transportation  becomes  about  10  cents  per  barrel. 
Interest  on  the  estimated  cost  of  reproduction  at  tent 
per  cent  would  be  about  the  same  amount,  so  that 
a  pipe-line  charge  of  20  cents  per  barrel  from  Lima 
to  the  seaboard  would  cover  the  cost  of  transporta- 
tion and  give  a  return  of  about  ten  per  cent  on  the 
necessary  investment.  The  pipe-line  rate  is  53^ 
cents  from  Lima  to  Philadelphia.' 

"  The  New  York  Times  in  an  editorial  article 
recently  pointed  out  that  this  announces  a  new  prin- 
ciple in  transportation  charges.  Mr.  Smith  pro- 
poses to  base  the  rates  on  the  cost  of  the  service.  The 
Times  well  says :     '  The  nile  with  carrying  corpora- 

187 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

tions  has  been  to  establish  the  rate  that  will  move 
the  traffic  ' — that  Is  to  say,  a   rate  based  upon  the 
market    worth   of   the    service,    not    upon    its    cost. 
That  is  the  law  of  trade  the  world  over.     But  to 
our   mind    this    is  by   no   means   the   only    or    even 
the  main  objection  to  Mr.   Smith's  proposal.     The 
project  if  carried  out  in  the  way  indicated  would  be 
an  appropriation  of  private  property  to  general  use 
and  the  matter  would  be  made  worse  by  fixing  the 
compensation  for  such  use  at  an  absurdly  low  figure. 
There  are  many  persons  who  question  whether  Con- 
gress did  not  exceed  its  power  when  It  undertook  to 
bring  the  pipe  lines  within  the  provisions  of  the  Inter- 
state Commerce  Law.   But,  waiving  the  constitutional 
question,  there  can  be  no  two  opinions  of  the  injus- 
tice of  an  act  that  would  compute  compensation  on  any 
such  basis  as  that  outlined  in  the  foregoing  extract. 
"  Except  in  the  fact  that  the  pipe  lines  constitute 
continuous  arteries  for  the  carrying  of  a  product,  they 
have  nothing   in  common  with   the   railways.      The 
latter  manifestly  should  be  open  to  all.     They  are 
highways  for  the  transportation  of  goods  and  passen- 
gers, much  in  the  same  sense  as  the  ordinary  high- 
ways exist  for  the  benefit  of  common  vehicles  and 
pedestrians.     Then,  also,  the  railroads  are  not  limited 
to  the  transportation  of  any  single  product  or  com- 
modity, but  perform  a  general  transportation  busi- 
ness.    Moreover,  for  the  purpose  of  carr}nng  on  their 
function   as  transportation   agencies   they  have  been 
endowed  with  certain  special  powers  which  make  it 
appropriate  that  they  should  be  available  to  all  with- 
out preference   or   fav'or.     They   are   endowed,    for 
instance,  with  the  power  of  eminent  domain.     Mr. 
Smith,   in  speaking  of  the  advisability  of  the  inde- 
pendent refineries  constructing  their  own  pipe  lines, 

i88 


STANDARD    OIL    DEFENDED 

says  that  in  certain  of  the  States  which  would  natu- 
rally be  crossed  by  independent  pipe  lines  no  law  now 
exists  giving  the  right  of  eminent  domain  to  pipe- 
hne  companies.  It  thus  appears  that  the  Standard's 
pipe  lines  have  not  been  built  up  to  any  extent,  If 
at  all,  through  the  exercise  of  the  power  of  eminent 
domain.  Another  point  of  distinction  between  the 
railroad  and  the  pipe  line  is  that  the  former  requires 
an  enormous  amount  of  capital,  the  latter  ver}'  little 
capital.  The  224,000  miles  of  railroads  in  the 
United  States  represent  a  capital  investment  of  over 
14,000  million  dollars.  We  have  already  seen  that 
Mr.  Smith  thinks  $50,000,000  was  probably  an  over- 
statement of  the  cost  of  the  35,000  miles  of  pipe  line 
which  existed  In  1899.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  pipe 
lines  simply  consist  of  six-  or  eight-inch  pipe  and  the 
cost  does  not  average  much  more  than  $1,200  to 
$1,500  a  mile.  Finally,  the  pipes  do  not  require  any 
special  bed  or  place  In  which  to  rest.  They  can  be 
laid  anywhere,  since  the  oil  Is  pumped  through  them. 
"  The  matter,  therefore,  comes  to  this.  Special 
facilities  in  a  single  department  of  industry  have  been 
created  through  the  Intelligence  and  foresight  of  the 
managers  of  the  enterprise.  In  the  whole  history  of 
the  modern  Industrial  world  this  has  always  been  held 
as  entitling  those  creating  such  facilities  to  the  advan- 
tages and  profits  attending  their  operation.  Is  it  not 
a  most  obnoxious  doctrine  to  maintain  that  after  these 
special  devices  have  been  In  existence  twenty-five  or 
thirty  years  and  their  Indlspensableness  and  profit- 
ableness incontrovertibly  demonstrated  and  estab- 
lished, the  State  should  step  In  and  say  that  com- 
petitors and  rivals  must  be  allowed  to  share  In  the 
benefits  and  offer  a  mere  pittance  by  way  of  compen- 
sation ?    Note  the  effect.    The  creator  of  these  special 

189 


THE    RAID    OiN    PROSPERITY 

agencies  is  to  be  allowed  no  special  reward  for  its 
enterprise.  All  its  labors  are  to  count  for  nothing. 
The  fruits  of  its  skill  and  energy  are  to  be  shared  on 
equal  terms  with  the  outsider  who  put  no  capital  at 
risk,  but  who  is  now  to  enjoy  the  fruits  as  if  they 
were  the  result  of  his  own  energy.  Is  it  fair?  Is 
it  right?  And  if  an  entering  wedge  for  such  a  doc- 
trine is  once  provided,  how  long  will  it  be  before 
property  rights  everywhere  will  be  subjected  to  a 
similar  scheme  of  spoliation?  And  what  difference 
is  there  between  taking  possession  of  property  in  this 
way  for  common  distribution  and  the  Socialist  scheme 
of  government?  " 


CHAPTER    XII 

THE    STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY   IN    COURT 

AS  I  have  shown,  no  corporation  in  this  coun- 
try, or  in  any  other  for  that  matter,  ever  has 
been  the  victim  of  such  mahgnant  hate  and 
tireless  persecution  as  has  the  Standard  Oil  Company. 

It  has  been  pursued  relentlessly  by  its  unsuccessful 
competitors,  who,  failing  In  court,  have  gone  to  the 
public  press.  At  last  it  has  been  assailed  by  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  general  government  for  political 
purposes,  which  the  company,  departing  from  a  uni- 
versal practice,  ventured  to  answer.  For  this  crime 
of  self-defense  it  has  been  prosecuted  In  courts  of  the 
administration's  own  choosing,  before  judges  which  it 
had  appointed,  and  before  appeals  could  be  heard  In 
courts  of  law  beyond  the  reach  of  spite  and  revenge, 
it  has  been  haled  as  guilty  with  a  great  clatter  of  ap- 
proval by  a  certain  portion  of  the  partisan  press 
which  has  wished  to  vindicate  itself  for  persistent 
slanders  of  the  company  and  one  of  its  chief  figures. 

Certain  preachers  of  the  sensational  type,  short 
of  the  gospel,  and  singularly  forgetful  of  the  man- 
date against  unjust  judging,  have  made  attacks  upon 

191 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

the  company  the  subject  of  their  pulpit  deliverances 
with  nothing  to  support  their  slanders  except  the  mar- 
ketable sensational  story  of  the  magazine  writer  or 
the  assault  of  some  person  who  holds  a  grievance 
which  is  adroitly  covered  under  specious  pretenses  of 
fairness  and  candor. 

The  most  preposterous  things  are  charged  with 
regard  to  the  Increase  at  different  times  of  the  price 
of  kerosene,  charges  which  discredit  the  common  in- 
telligence of  those  who  make  them,  if  they  believe 
such  things,  and  their  common  honesty  if  they  do  not. 

These  things,  because  of  the  mistaken  policy  of 
the  company  in  remaining  silent,  have  been  permitted 
to  go  on  for  a  generation,  gathering  force,  until  they 
have  created  a  public  sentiment  which  shields  un- 
just decisions  of  courts,  as  in  recent  notorious  cases, 
and  which  makes  it  almost  impossible  to  secure  un- 
biased juries,  especially  when  these  preposterous  ac- 
cusations are  given  weight  by  a  prosecuting  admin- 
istration. 

Prejudice  Is  excited  by  another  mistaken  policy 
of  the  company  in  the  matter  of  its  capitalization. 
Much  Is  said  in  these  days  of  overcapitalization. 
The  fault  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  is  in  the  op- 
posite direction.  Its  capital  remains  at  a  little  over  one 
hundred  millions,  although  its  property,  like  that  of 
many  other  great  businesses,  has  increased  tenfold  or 
more.  Its  dividends,  therefore,  are  given  out  as  forty 
per  cent  and  at  once  there  is  a  shout  from  the  agita- 
tor that  the  enormous  profit  Is  obtained  by  grinding 

192 


STANDARD   OIL    COMPANY    IN    COURT 

the  poor,  when  the  actual  profit  on  the  total  invest- 
ment is  far  below  those  figures. 

The  statements  are  voluminous  that  this  Trust 
has  been  convicted  in  nearly  every  State  in  the  Union. 
Until  the  recent  prosecutions,  which  more  justly 
should  be  termed  persecutions,  no  one  of  the  convic- 
tions has  taken  place,  while  those  of  the  past  few 
weeks  are  appealed  to  the  higher  courts  and,  therefore, 
are  not  final  convictions.  The  public  owes  it  to  Itself 
to  divest  itself  of  prejudice  and  examine  the  facts. 

In  our  country  jury  cases  are  tried  so  in  the  open 
that  men  not  in  the  jury  panel  can  judge  as  com- 
petently and  often  more  so  than  the  jurymen,  for  it 
sometimes  happens,  as  In  the  Chicago  case,  that  the 
public  hears  things  kept  from  the  jury. 

Take  the  Chicago  &  Alton  case  against  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  as  an  example  of  the  way 
cases  are  being  managed  to  secure  a  verdict  against 
the  great  corporations. 

In  that  case,  before  the  United  States  Judge  K. 
M.  Landls,  the  Standard  Oil  Company  of  Indiana 
was  found  guilty  under  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Law,  on  1,463  counts,  of  using  an  Illegal  rate  over  the 
Chicago  &  Alton  Railroad  from  Whiting,  Ind.,  to 
East  St.  Louis,  111. 

The  case  turned  on  the  question  of  the  legality 
of  the  freight  rate  paid  on  oil,  which  was  6  cents 
per  cwt.  In  carload  lots.  The  government  contended 
that  the  legal  rate  was  18  cents;  so  great  a  differ- 
ence that  It  seemed  a  monstrous  discrimination,  if  the 

193 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

government's  contentions  were  true.  But  they  were 
not  true.  It  was  never  asserted  that  anyone  had  paid 
1 8  cents  for  carrying  oil  over  that  route.  No  other 
oil  company  had  been  charged  that  rate.  In  1889 
the  roads  running  between  Chicago  and  East  St. 
Louis  made  a  classification  of  rates,  which  was  en- 
tered at  Washington.  In  this,  petroleum  was  put  in 
the  fifth  class  at  18  cents.  All  the  great  staples, 
however,  were  at  once  excepted  from  this  "  class  " 
rating,  and  were  put  under  what  is  known  as  "  com- 
modity "  rating  at  very  reduced  charges,  as  will  be 
seen  farther  on,  petroleum  among  the  rest. 

Three  railroads  were  available  for  the  service  of 
carrying  the  oil  to  East  St.  Louis;  namely,  the  Chi- 
cago &  Alton  Railroad,  the  Chicago,  Burlington  & 
Quincy  Railroad,  and  the  Chicago  &  Eastern  Illinois 
Railroad.  Among  these  three  railroads  the  Standard 
Oil  Company  divided  its  carload  shipments  in  about 
equal  shares.  The  three  roads  had  made  a  "  commod- 
ity "  rate  on  petroleum  of  6  cents,  which  was  used 
openly  and  without  discrimination  for  fourteen  years 
( 1 891-1905)  by  the  Chicago  &  Alton  and  the  Chica- 
go, Burlington  &  Quincy,  while  for  ten  years  ( 1895- 
1905)  the  rate  of  6^  cents  (the  equivalent  of  6  cents, 
because  it  included  a  switching  charge  of  one  fourth 
of  a  cent)  was  used  by  the  Chicago  &  Eastern  Illinois. 

Of  these  three  roads  the  Chicago  &  Eastern 
Illinois  was  the  only  one  that  filed  the  rate  with  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  at  Washington. 
By  so  doing  it  made  the  rate  legal  under  the  Federal 

194 


STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY    IN    COURT 

law.  The  Chicago  &  Alton  failed  to  file  the  6-cent 
rate  at  Washington,  though  It  used  It  for  fourteen 
years,  and  on  this  neglect  or  omission  by  the  railroad 
the  entire  case  of  the  government  against  the  Stand- 
ard Oil  Company  stands.  The  judge  declared  that 
the  Standard  OH  Company  or  any  other  shipper  was 
bound  to  know  that  a  rate  had  been  made  legal  before 
accepting  It! 

It  must  appear  at  once  to  the  impartial  mind  that 
a  shipper  would  not  enter  Into  a  criminal  arrange- 
ment with  the  possibility  of  heavy  fines  with  one  road 
(the  Chicago  &  Alton)  from  Whiting  to  East  St. 
Louis  when  it  could  have  shipped  all  its  oil  at  the 
same  rate  over  another  road  (the  Chicago  &  East- 
ern Illinois)  which  had  complied  with  all  the  legal 
requirements.  This  one  fact  proves  conclusively  a 
lack  of  criminal  intent.  The  Standard  Oil  had  ab- 
solutely no  reason,  financial  or  otherwise,  for  entering 
Into  a  secret  arrangement  with  the  Chicago  &  Alton 
Railroad,  or  for  giving  that  road  any  of  its  business, 
even  had  it  known  or  thought  that  the  Chicago  & 
Alton  as  a  common  carrier  had  not  complied  with 
all  the  legal  requirements.  What  possible  advantage 
did  the  Standard  Oil  obtain?  What  trade  of  a  com 
petitor  did  it  restrain? 

In  the  course  of  the  trial  the  question  of  allow 
Ing  the  Standard  OH  Company  to  prove  the  absence  of 
illegal  Intent  was  discussed  at  length  for  three  days, 
the  court  finally  and  reluctantly  deciding  that  evidence 
to  establish  Innocence  of  criminal  intention  was  com- 

195 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

petent  and  admissible.  It  proved  a  delusive  decision, 
however,  for  when  the  Standard  Oil  Company's  coun- 
sel offered  to  prove  the  state  of  affairs  set  forth  above, 
which  would  plainly  show  no  intent  to  violate  the  law, 
the  court  decided  that  it  was  inadmissible  and  re- 
fused to  allow  the  jury  to  learn  that  the  6-cent  rate 
was  legal  over  another  road  besides  the  Chicago  & 
Alton;  namely,  the  Chicago  &  Eastern  Illinois.  This 
latter  decision  governed  the  entire  case,  making  coun- 
sel for  the  defendants  feel  that  they  had  been  vic- 
timized. The  court  refused  to  allow  the  6-cent  In- 
terstate Commerce  rate  between  the  same  points  over 
the  Chicago  &  Eastern  Illinois  to  be  made  part  of 
the  record.  How  could  the  jury  act  intelligently 
without  it?  To  rule  that  the  company  could  show 
intent  and  then  refuse  to  allow  counsel  to  present  the 
common  tariff  of  6  cents  placed  the  company  in  a 
worse  light  before  the  jury  than  it  would  have  been 
in  had  the  intent  been  refused  entirely.  It  was  a 
seeming  justice  that  was  unjust. 

The  man  who  was  General  Freight  Agent  of  the 
Chicago  &  Alton  Railroad  during  the  period  covered 
by  the  indictment  was  not  allowed  to  interpret  his  own 
tariffs  and  say  what  the  rate  was,  but  an  ordinary 
clerk  from  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  was 
put  up  to  testify  as  an  expert  and  maintain  that  i8 
cents  was  the  only  possible  legal  rate.  In  the  face 
of  these  rulings  and  exclusions  it  was  not  extraor- 
dinary that  the  jury  should  have  found  as  it  did,  but 
he  who  could  contend  that  the  equities  were  observed 

196 


STANDARD   OIL    COMPANY    IN    COURT 

in  the  trial  would  have  difficulty  to  prove  his  con- 
tention. 

When  packing-house  products  are  carried  under 
the  "commodity"  rate  for  lO  cents,  malt  7  cents, 
brick  5  cents,  corn  meal  7  cents,  rosin  6^7  cents,  starch 
8  cents,  peas,  beans,  popcorn  8  cents,  linseed  oil  in 
tank  cars  8  cents,  lard  oil  10  cents,  glycerine  8  cents, 
and  so  on,  what  a  draft  it  is  on  human  credulity  for 
a  government  prosecution  to  bring  forward  an  offi- 
cial to  assert  that  18  cents  was  the  only  possible 
rate  on  petroleum  which  had  been  carried  by  the 
three  roads  for  from  ten  to  fourteen  years  for 
6  cents. 

It  has  been  a  case  founded  throughout  on  the  gov- 
ernment's side  of  minute  technicalities  and  presented 
with  a  ruthless  exclusion  of  such  contributory  and  ex- 
planatory relations  as  would  have  established  the  fact 
that  the  Standard  Oil  Company  had  paid  no  less  than 
a  fair  rate  of  freight,  and  had  paid  it  with  perfect  be- 
lief in  its  legality  as  well  as  its  sufficiency. 

To  show  that  this  opinion  is  shared  by  some  of 
the  most  astute  minds  in  the  country,  I  present  an  edi- 
torial from  the  Brooklyn  Eagle,  well  known  for  its 
independence  and  candor. 

BARKED    UP   THE   WRONG    TREE 

"  It  took   a    Chicago   jury   about  two   hours   to 

bring   in   a  verdict  of   guilty    against   the    Standard 

Oil    Company,    charged  with  having   sent   oil    from 

Whiting,  Ind.,  to  East  St.  Louis,  at  6  cents  a  hun- 

14  197 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

dred,  the  legal  rate  being  i8.  There  was  one 
indictment  but  many  counts — 1,463.  For  each  of- 
fense, otherwise  called  a  count,  a  fine  must  be  Im- 
posed. When  sentence  has  been  pronounced  the 
company  may  find  $29,260,000  added  to  Its  list  of 
contingent  liabilities.  There  Is  a  large  margin,  how- 
ever, between  maximum  and  minimum,  $1,463,000 
being  the  lowest  figure  at  which  the  trial  judge 
can  mulct  the  corporation.  His  honor  specifically 
charged  that  the  jury  must  find  intent  on  the  part  of 
the  defendant  to  violate  the  law. 

"  Naturally,  the  verdict  was  hailed  as  a  signal 
victory  for  the  people.  Culpability,  not  to  say  crim- 
inahty,  is  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course,  when  the 
defendant  happens  to  be  a  great  corporation,  which 
is  held  to  be  synonymous  with  a  grinding  monopoly. 
Still,  the  fact  remains  that  law  is  not  presumed  to 
differentiate,  that  it  Is  protective  as  well  as  punitive, 
that  it  Is  defensive  as  well  as  offensive.  Also  the  fact 
remains  that  injustice  can  be  done  to  none  without 
peril  to  all,  rich  and  poor  alike  being  in  the  same 
boat.  And  there  are  facts  In  the  case  against  the 
Standard  Oil  Company,  account  of  which  can  well  be 
taken. 

"  There  is  railroad  competition  between  the 
points  alluded  to  above.  The  Chicago  &  Alton 
asked  for  part  of  the  Standard  Oil  business,  offering 
transportation  at  prevailing  rates,  6  cents  a  hundred. 
The  offer  was  accepted  and  the  business  divided.  It 
appears,  however,  that  the  Chicago  &  Alton  was  a 
reorganized  road  and  that  Its  predecessor  had  pub- 
lished 18  cents  a  hundred  as  its  oil  rate.  It  also  ap- 
pears that  this  rate  had  gone  Into  desuetude,  being 
superseded  in  everything  but  the  matter  of  publica- 
tion, which  little  legal  formality  had  been  overlooked. 

198 


STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY    IN    COURT 

Armed  with  this  technicality,  the  government  invoked 
the  pains  and  penalties  of  the  law. 

"  Statutes  have  been  described  as  common  sense 
crystallized.  The  defendant  diverted  to  the  Chicago 
&  Alton  part  of  the  patronage  two  other  roads  en- 
joyed. As  no  other  manufacturer  ships  oil  between 
the  points,  there  could,  of  course,  be  no  effort  to  grind 
a  competitor.  And  as  neither  more  nor  less  was  paid 
to  one  line  than  to  each  of  the  two  others,  it  was  a 
clear  case  of  share  and  share  alike  as  far  as  the 
carrying  corporations  were  concerned.  So,  nothing 
can  be  clearer  than  that  there  was  no  motive  for  vio- 
lating law,  the  one  thing  clear  being  the  absence  of 
inducement.  Nor,  finally,  could  any  harm  come  to 
the  consumer,  the  company's  rule  being  to  make  the 
selling  price  plus  the  freight. 

"  For  what,  therefore,  is  the  company  to  be 
fined?  Certainly  not  for  restraining  trade,  because 
there  was  no  competition.  Certainly  not  for  aiding 
and  abetting  a  railroad  monopoly,  because  it  dis- 
tributed its  patronage.  Certainly  not  for  conspiring 
and  plotting  to  rob  the  consumer,  because  the  afore- 
said distribution  cost  him  nothing.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  damage  was  done  to  literally  nobody,  neither 
public  nor  private  interests  being  either  injured  or 
menaced.  The  head  and  front  of  the  company's  of- 
fending is  that  it  did  not  pay  a  rate  not  only  ob- 
solete, but  ridiculous.  It  only  remains  to  be  added 
that  it  is  not  more  ridiculous  than  the  law  which 
in  such  circumstances  is  carried  to  enforcement.  As  to 
the  government  lawyers,  they  were  barking  up  the 
wrong  tree." 

But  added  to  this  astonishing  procedure  which  it 
would  seem  cannot  stand  before  a  court  of  law  unless 

199 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

we  have  become  reduced  to  the  arbitrary  will  of  the 
executive  branch  of  the  government,  which  no  one 
believes  who  recalls  the  history  of  our  superior  courts, 
is  the  equally  astonishing  demand  of  the  Chicago 
judge  that  the  company  declare  whether  it  had  been 
convicted  before!  The  reply  of  the  Standard  Oil 
Company's  counsel  upon  that  point  is  a  clear  and 
absolute  denial  of  the  company's  offending  at  any 
time. 

Of  a  piece  with  the  other  proceedings  was  the 
rounding  up  of  men  and  dragging  them  halfway 
across  the  country  under  the  pretense  of  ascertaining 
facts  which  never  have  been  concealed  and  which  are 
of  such  common  fame  that  they  are  current  among 
schoolboys. 

This  is  the  way  we  vindicate  law  in  these  days. 
This  is  the  spectacular  parade  we  make  of  it  to  show 
how  impartial  it  Is.  We  want  the  common  people  to 
know  how  impartial  the  law  is  if  we  have  to  harass 
some  of  our  citizens  to  show  it. 

This  in  a  nutshell  is  the  case  which  justified  the 
judge  in  pronouncing  a  fine  of  about  $30,000,000 
upon  the  Standard  Oil  Company,  with  a  vehemence  of 
words  and  vindictiveness  of  manner,  as  represented 
by  the  press,  which  indicated  resentment  and  other 
personal  feelings  that  we  do  not  expect  in  exact  jus- 
tice. That  a  judge  pronouncing  such  an  enormously 
disproportioned  sentence  should  express  regret  that 
he  could  not  make  It  greater  shows  the  danger  that 
popular    agitation    and    excitement    may    reach    our 

200 


STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY    IN    COURT 

courts  of  justice  as  has  happened  in  other  periods  of 
the  world's  history. 

That  such  a  fine  can  be  imposed  upon  a  great 
business  or  industry  under  any  commercial  law  also 
shows  the  looseness  and  recklessness  of  these  recent 
acts  of  Congress  for  the  regulation  of  trade.  Could 
there  be  a  more  forcible  illustration  of  the  President's 
remark  concerning  another  such  law,  that  its  enforce- 
ment would  ruin  the  business  of  the  country?  It  is 
a  good  time  to  recall  General  Grant's  remark  that 
the  way  to  repeal  a  bad  law  is  to  enforce  it. 

But  there  are  some  Interesting  incidents  attend- 
ing this  case  aside  from  the  deep  interest  which  the 
administration  has  taken  in  it  and  its  trial  before  an 
appointee  of  the  President. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  at  the  beginning  of 
the  case  and  at  a  singularly  suggestive  point  in  it, 
Commissioner  H.  K.  Smith  sent  forth  a  report  at- 
tacking the  Standard  Oil  Company  vehemently.  His 
report  was  so  unjust  that  it  was  contradicted  even  by 
the  critics  of  the  company.  Immediately  upon  the 
heels  of  the  confiscating  fine  of  the  judge,  a  fine  fifty 
times  greater  than  all  the  oil  transported,  Mr.  Smith 
appears  with  another  assault  upon  the  company,  which 
the  New  York  Times,  never  overfriendly  to  the 
Standard  Oil  Company,  pronounces  in  an  exceedingly 
able  and  fair  editorial,  as  "  in  many  substantial  re- 
spects unfair  and  not  sustained  by  the  evidence." 

At  the  same  time  another  commissioner  who  had 
attacked  the  company  in  a  former  report  gave  forth 

20I 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

his  voice  in  public  that  the  Standard  Oil  Company 
would  have  to  pay  the  fine.  And  this  in  the  face  of 
the  fact  that  the  company's  case  was  to  be  heard  in  the 
highest  court  of  the  land.  What  shall  be  said  for  the 
judicial  character  of  these  men  representing  the  ad- 
ministration, what  of  their  sense  of  fairness  and  their 
good  taste?  Is  it  true  that  there  is  a  well-laid  scheme 
to  secure  the  conviction  of  this  corporation  ?  Is  this 
remarkable  report  timed  to  steady  the  public  mind 
against  a  verdict  so  manifestly  unjust  that  it  is  feared 
the  people  will  resent  it  and  make  their  protest? 
Probably  not !  It  is  only  a  coincidence !  It  is  one 
which  could  have  been  easily  prevented,  however. 
And  it  is  such  a  striking  coincidence,  taken  in  con- 
nection with  the  other  report  which  was  so  startlingly 
timed,  in  connection  with  the  trial,  that  people  in  this 
age,  when  there  are  so  many  interested  in  psychic  cur- 
rents and  other  such  phenomena,  are  sure  to  remark 
upon  it.  Without  drawing  any  inferences  or  suggest- 
ing anything  dishonorable  or  that  anyone  had  any 
personal  interest  in  the  unjust  sentence,  I  take  the  lib- 
erty of  referring  the  coincidences  to  the  Psychic  As- 
sociation of  Boston  with  a  request  that  it  give  an 
explanation,  the  absence  of  which  is  an  embarrass- 
ment to  fair-minded  persons  who  look  at  such  things 
upon  the  surface  through  only  the  eyes  of  plain  com- 
mon sense. 

As  Mr.  Smith's  report  seems  to  be  a  supplemen- 
tary part  of  the  Chicago  court  proceedings  against  the 
Standard  Oil  Company,  I  venture  under  this  head  to 

202 


STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY    IN    COURT 

make  one  or  two  more  references  to  it.  He  presents 
an  array  of  statistics  which  in  some  hands  are  rather 
dangerous  things  to  handle,  and  says:  "The  claim 
of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  that  its  control  of 
the  business  is  due  to  its  ability  to  maintain  low 
prices  because  of  superior  efficiency  is  a  complete 
misrepresentation  of  facts."  To  this  the  New  York 
Times  replies:  "We  do  not  think  that  experienced 
business  men  accustomed  to  the  examination  of  trade 
statistics  and  familiar  with  economic  facts  and  princi- 
ples would  concur  in  the  conclusions  of  this  report." 
"  It  seems  to  us  that  the  picture  presented  by  statistical 
tables  and  diagrammatic  representations  of  the  his- 
tory of  prices  in  the  petroleum  industry  is  that  of  a 
business  carried  on  substantially  under  the  conditions 
that  govern  most  businesses  intelligently  managed  in  a 
modern  way.  They  seem  to  us  further  to  show  that 
the  chief,  the  dominating  influence  in  lowering  the 
price  of  illuminating  oil  to  consumers  during  the  past 
forty  years  has  been  that  very  '  efficiency  '  of  the 
Standard  Oil  Company  from  which  Mr.  Smith  with- 
holds all  credit."  And  the  Times  remarks  further: 
"  It  cannot  be  doubted,  we  think,  that  if  Mr. 
Rockefeller  and  the  men  about  him  had  never  been 
born  and  if  no  other  men  of  equal  capacity  had 
organized  and  built  up  the  great  Standard  Oil  busi- 
ness and  had  normal  competition  always  existed  in 
the  industry  through  the  strife  one  with  another  of 
many  companies  with  a  few  millions  of  capital, 
the   price    paid   by   consumers   in   this   country    for 

203 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

illuminating  oil  would  now  be  much  higher  than 
the  actual  quoted  prices.  That  is  what  the  price 
tables  and  diagrams  not  only  of  the  reports  of  the 
Bureau  of  Corporations  but  of  Miss  Tarbell's  book 
appear  to  show  and  demonstrate  when  interpreted  in 
an  unbiased  way  by  the  light  of  human  reason  and 
business  experience."  "  Commissioner  of  Corpora- 
tions Smith  is  unable  convincingly  to  interpret  the 
facts  he  sets  forth,  which  is  the  same  thing  as  saying 
that  his  conclusions  are  not  demonstrated." 

I  have  quoted  from  the  Times  because  it  is  not 
possible  for  anyone  who  knows  the  history  of  that 
great  paper  to  say  that  It  has  ever  shown  any  bias 
toward  the  Standard  Oil  Company. 

The  last  sentence  quoted  is  most  suggestive.  It 
is  a  side  light  of  very  intense  rays  upon  my  conten- 
tion that  these  immense  questions  of  manufacture, 
industry,  and  commerce,  of  such  vast  interest  to  the 
people,  have  been  handed  over  to  incompetents  who 
are  doing  the  country  enormous  mischief.  They 
would  not  have  been  tolerated  an  hour  in  times  be- 
fore these  Insane  agitations  upon  questions  Infinitely 
beyond  the  agitators. 

What  a  spectacle  is  this  of  a  commissioner  who 
cannot  discuss  with  common  intelligence  the  subject 
for  which  he  is  made  responsible  and  whose  un- 
friendly animus  blinds  him  to  common  fairness  and  to 
common  propriety. 

Should  not  the  men  who  are  set  to  guide  the 
country's  thought  in  such  matters  have  something  of 

204 


STANDARD   OIL    COMPANY   IN    COURT 

the  ability  and  experience  and  practical  knowledge  in 
a  business  of  those  whom  they  propose  to  arraign  and 
condemn?  Where  is  the  common  justice  of  permit- 
ting such  feeble-minded  and  puerile  presentations  to 
prejudice  a  mighty  business  in  the  public  mind  and 
to  obstruct  it  in  foreign  lands  to  which  our  export 
trade  is  extending? 

One  of  the  features  of  these  wild  prosecutions  is 
most  interesting  as  showing  the  incitement  to  activity 
upon  the  part  of  courts  and  prosecuting  officers,  in- 
vestigating committees,  etc.  It  ought  to  awaken  a 
little  sober  reflection,  I  refer  to  the  nomination  of 
a  judge  who  imposes  an  extravagant  sentence  or  an 
attorney  who  runs  down  some  corporation,  for  some 
high  office.  In  less  than  twenty-four  hours  after  the 
Chicago  judge  had  pronounced  his  bizarre  sentence 
upon  the  Standard  Oil  Company  the  politicians  were 
proclaiming  his  name  for  Governor  of  Illinois! 

Comment  is  unnecessary.  We  are  in  peculiar 
times.  Anyone  prosecuted  may  have  the  satisfaction 
of  knowing  that  so  it  may  happen  to  his  neighbor 
if  it  can  serve  the  new  cause.  Even  the  decisions  of 
courts,  however  extreme,  are  not  satisfactory.  Mr. 
Bryan  wails  that  the  company  will  raise  the  price  of 
oil  and  pay  the  fine.  There  is  no  satisfying  the 
demagogy  of  the  times. 

But  what  Commissioner  Smith  calls  his  Part  Two 
of  Standard  Oil  investigation  is  still  more  interest- 
ing and  suggestive.  We  have  discovered  that  the 
commissioner's  facts  are  disputed  by  men  apparently 

205 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

of  as  much  personal  integrity  and  of  far  more 
experience  than  he  can  claim  for  himself.  But 
the  logic  of  the  report  is  sufficient  for  our 
purpose. 

He  says:  "Meeting  competition  abroad  it  [the 
Standard  Oil]  has  given  the  foreign  consumer  enor- 
mously low  prices  and  it  has  used  the  profits  made 
at  home  to  maintain  its  position  abroad  so  that  the 
American  consumer  has  been  severely  discriminated 
against,"  with  other  such  charges!  The  only  infer- 
ence is  that  the  Standard  has  been  so  anxious  to  do 
foreign  business  that  it  has  used  exorbitant  profits  ex- 
torted from  the  American  public  to  help  it  do  a  busi- 
ness that  it  could  not  have  done  without  putting  Into 
it  home-made  profits.  Why  did  it  desire  to  do  such  a 
losing  business?  This  can  only  be  explained  in  one  of 
two  ways,  either  the  company  is  incompetent  to  do 
business  or  it  is  a  case  of  abounding  and  astonishing 
benevolence  to  foreign  nations !  The  plain  statement 
of  the  commissioner  is  that  it  is  taking  profits  from 
Americans  and  giving  them  to  foreigners.  If  it  is 
said  that  it  is  for  a  temporary  purpose  to  overcome 
an  enormous  competition  abroad,  supported  by  the 
Rothschilds  and  others,  then  the  complaint  falls  to 
the  ground,  for  the  establishing  of  such  a  great  per- 
manent foreign  trade  upon  a  sound  basis  is  in  the 
interest  of  the  American  public.  But  is  the  Standard 
Oil  the  only  exporter  that  sells  abroad  for  less  than 
the  home  price?  If  not,  why  was  not  the  commis- 
sioner fair  and  square  enough  to  say  so?     Was  he 

206 


STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY    IN    COURT 

trying  to  prejudice  the  public  against  the  Standard? 
He  ought  to  have  known  that  steel  rails,  farm  im- 
plements, carpenters'  tools,  and  other  such  articles, 
are  in  the  same  class.  Why  are  the  sins  of  the 
Standard  the  only  sins  that  shock  Mr.  Smith?  Every 
novice  knows  that  such  export  practices  are  often 
of  the  highest  public  value  and  no  robbery  of  the 
public. 

Another  statement  of  this  Part  Two  is,  "  It  [the 
Standard]  has  pocketed  all  the  advantages  of  its 
economics  instead  of  sharing  them  with  the  public  "  ! 
How  long  since  a  private  business  was  required  to  take 
the  public  into  partnership  and  do  business  for  it? 
What  other  business  shares  its  advantages,  which,  of 
course,  means  its  profits,  from  its  economics,  with  the 
public?  It  pays  the  public  its  taxes,  it  gives  the  pub- 
lic the  best  product  it  can  produce  at  a  price  that 
pays  only  about  five  per  cent  on  the  total  investments 
in  its  enormous  plants.  What  more  does  any  busi- 
ness owe  to  the  public?  And  what  more  has  the 
public  a  right  to  expect? 

The  logic  seems  to  be  that  the  Standard  must  do 
business  at  a  profit  to  be  determined  by  the  Commis- 
sioner of  Corporations,  and  all  above  that  must  be 
divided  with  the  public.  No  balder  socialism  ever 
stalked  through  this  country.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
a  leading  socialist  authority  has  said  that  socialists 
do  not  need  to  do  anything  more  to  advance  their 
cause,  for  the  present  administration  Is  doing  it  for 
them! 

207 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

Another  wail  of  this  Part  Two  which  emphasizes 
still  further,  as  the  Times  charges,  the  incompetency 
of  the  commissioner  to  discuss  a  question  of  such 
magnitude,  is  the  statement  that  the  company  "  is 
adding  monopoly  profits  and  charging  more  than 
smaller  and  less  economical  concerns  could  sell  for  if 
the  Standard  allowed  them  the  chance  " !  Are  we 
to  understand  that  these  smaller  concerns  could  do 
business  for  the  public  more  satisfactorily  because 
they  are  less  economical?  Or  is  the  profit  so  great 
that  it  may  be  used  to  encourage  the  less  economical? 
If  they  were  more  economical,  could  they  compete 
more  successfully?  Then  they  and  not  the  Standard 
are  at  fault.  Is  it  the  doctrine  of  economists  that  a 
business  is  to  manage  its  affairs  so  as  to  aid  its  com- 
petitors and  help  them  to  a  share  of  its  trade  and 
profits,  or  is  this  some  more  of  the  beauties  of 
socialism? 

Why  is  the  obligation  on  the  Standard  Oil  and 
not  upon  the  Independents  as  well?  If  it  is  true  that 
the  latter  have  forced  the  Standard  to  charge  more  in 
some  places  that  it  may  retain  its  place  at  a  fair  profit 
in  others,  why  is  the  Standard  the  sinner  In  this  com- 
petition and  its  rivals  the  saints?  The  wrong  seems 
to  be  in  the  success.  There  is  not  a  thing  charged 
to  the  Standard  that  has  not  been  done  by  the  Inde- 
pendents and  there  is  not  a  thing  done  by  either  that 
has  not  been  recognized  as  legitimate  in  competitive 
trade  since  the  world  began.  The  same  things  have 
been  done  in  various  degrees  in  different  places  and 

208 


STANDARD    OIL    COMPANY    IN    COURT 

times  by  every  form  of  business  known  to  men  both 
private  and  corporate. 

But  what  is  to  come  of  all  this  agitation  by  im- 
practical men  who  discuss  business  in  an  academic  and 
oracular  manner?  The  only  thing  that  will  come  out 
of  It  will  be  to  show  the  world  the  stupendous  folly 
of  it  all  at  the  expense  of  billions  of  money  and  the 
ruin  of  a  great  multitude  of  people.  Not  a  natural 
and  rational  law  of  commerce  will  be  changed.  The 
business  millennium  will  be  as  far  away  as  ever,  if 
not  farther. 

Who  have  applauded  the  unjust  and  persecuting 
attacks  of  the  administration  on  this  great  corpora- 
tion? The  administration,  the  demagogues  who  de- 
ceiv'e  the  misled  and  impulsive  voters  by  claiming  a 
great  reform,  the  vindictive  competitors  who  would 
have  exacted  greater  prices,  certain  revengeful  ene- 
mies, the  socialists  and  anarchists,  some  writers  for 
frenzied  magazines,  some  slanderous  yellow  journals, 
and  many  honest  people  misinformed  by  persistent 
libel — these  people  rejoice. 

Who  have  been  injured  by  the  attack  upon  this 
vast  business  and  upon  other  corporations  that  history 
will  give  a  place  among  the  beneficent  agencies  of 
these  times?  Six  thousand  people  who  own  the 
Standard  Oil  Company,  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
who  own  the  other  corporations,  and  all  men  who  are 
concerned  in  well-paid  labor  or  in  Investment  or  other- 
wise in  the  business  of  the  country  and  its  good  name, 
have  been  Injured, 

209 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

Time  will  prove  that  the  present  administration 
was  the  most  enormously  expensive  to  business  that 
our  country  ever  has  known,  and  there  will  be  no 
compensating  results  to  excuse  or  palliate  the  ruin 
which  it  wrought  in  its  blind  raid  against  a  condition 
of  prosperity  which  was  the  astonishment  of  man- 
kind. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

EXACT   JUSTICE 

THE  foundation  of  every  permanent  govern- 
ment is  justice.  Whatever  it  may  secure 
to  people  in  resources  of  wealth,  whatever 
of  wage-earning  labor,  whatever  of  liberty  of  fran- 
chise, If  injustice  can  be  done  Its  citizens  by  insuffi- 
cient law  or  too  much  law  or  by  perversion  of  law  by 
the  arbitrary  acts  of  administrators  and  the  judges  of 
courts,  the  government  cannot  endure.  It  is  sure  to 
perish  If  It  cannot  be  reformed. 

It  has  been  the  struggle  of  man  in  all  ages  to 
secure  justice,  and  it  Is  strange  that  those  who  have 
ruled  him  have  refused  It.  These  rulers  have  seemed 
to  place  justice  among  their  prerogatives  and  to  in- 
terpret it  by  their  selfish  interests  and  prejudices.  It 
has  been  asserted  as  a  divine  right.  But  men  have 
not  submitted;  they  have  made  their  protests  all  down 
the  centuries.  In  most  instances  it  has  been  upon  such 
broad  and  plain  definitions  that  "  he  who  runs  can 
read."  But  there  have  been  subtle  and  insidious  forms 
of  Injustice  to  which  the  people  have  been  slow  to 
awake.     You  find  them  in  a  Republic  where  the  peo- 

21  I 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

pie  make  their  own  laws  and  carelessly  leave  the 
interpretation  of  them  to  those  who  administer  them. 
There  is  not  a  State  of  the  Union  where  the  laws 
which  are  administered  are  the  exact  laws  on  statute 
books.  Large  liberty  of  construction  and  adminis- 
tration is  taken  by  executives,  from  governors  to 
sheriffs;  in  some  instances  men  have  been  appointed 
by  the  legislatures  to  compel  men  to  administer  the 
laws  as  enacted. 

The  theory  of  our  government  is  for  the  most 
part  sound.     The  practice  in  many  cases  is  not  so. 

One  source  of  serious  evil  is  in  the  appointment 
of  judges  of  courts  by  persons  who  are  likely  to  have 
a  political  interest  in  the  verdicts  of  those  judges. 
This,  which  was  foreseen  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  has 
been  fully  realized.  There  never  has  been  a  time 
when  it  was  so  prevalent  and  apparent  as  now.  It 
has  become  a  disgrace  to  the  country,  which  will  not 
be  tolerated  much  longer  if  we  are  worthy  of  self- 
government. 

The  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  are  appointed 
by  the  President  of  the  United  States.  The  consent 
of  the  Senate  is  usually  honored  in  the  breach. 
If  an  appointment  is  turned  down,  the  President 
makes  another,  and  in  the  end  the  will  of  the  Presi- 
dent is  accomplished.  Within  the  two  terms  of  a 
President  the  majority  of  the  Supreme  Court  judges 
may  become  his  appointees.  Federal  Courts  are  more 
easily  controlled  and  made  the  instruments  of  the 
President's  pleasure.      There  are  Federal  Courts  to- 

212 


EXACT    JUSTICE 

day  in  our  country  In  which  the  majority  of  the 
judges  have  been  appointed  by  Mr.  Roosevelt  and 
there  are  men  who  are  waiting  his  pleasure  for 
every  vacancy.  Every  one  of  these  courts  can  be 
changed  by  a  President  to  his  liking  at  any  time 
that  there  is  a  vacancy  by  death  or  resignation,  for 
he  has  the  making  of  such  judges  in  his  own  hands. 
It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  in  this  country  to-day  a 
number  of  the  Supreme  Court  judges  are  appointees 
of  the  President  now  in  office.  Over  half  of  the 
judges  of  the  District  Court,  nearly  half  of  the  judges 
of  the  Circuit  Courts,  and  a  third  of  the  Supreme 
Court  judges  have  been  appointed  by  President 
Roosevelt. 

There  would  be  no  serious  danger  threatening 
from  this  fact,  notwithstanding  the  fears  of  Mr.  Jef- 
ferson, if  the  President  of  the  United  States  would 
always  keep  himself  strictly  within  the  plain  intent 
of  the  Constitution  and  keep  his  personal  prejudices 
out  of  all  cases  before  the  courts.  If  the  use  of  such 
power  were  taken  from  him,  a  President  might  be 
less  tempted  to  influence  the  courts  and  dictate  to 
them  his  will  and  pleasure. 

Passing  events  may  lead  to  amendment  of  the 
Constitution  so  that  the  President  shall  not  have  the 
power  to  appoint  judges.  It  certainly  is  anomalous 
and  plainly  it  is  capable  of  great  abuse.  Why  in  our 
threefold  coordinate  government  should  the  making 
of  one  branch  be  subject  to  the  will  of  the  other  two, 
and  practically  to  the  will  of  one  of  the  other  two? 
15  213 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

Why  is  it  not  more  important  to  elect  judges  than 
to  elect  presidents  and  legislators?  If  the  people 
cannot  be  trusted  to  elect  judges,  they  cannot  be 
trusted  to  elect  Congress,  the  President,  and  Legisla- 
tures. If  any  men  should  be  absolutely  free  from 
the  pleasure  of  the  executive  branch  of  the  govern- 
ment, they  are  our  judges. 

That  the  President  may  come  to  feel  that  he  is 
not  only  responsible  for  the  selection  of  judges  but 
their  opinions  as  well  appears  in  the  notable  case  of 
Judge  Humphrey,  whose  recent  opinion  was  displeas- 
ing to  the  President  and  who  received  a  presidential 
rebuke  for  it;  who  was  told,  as  the  whole  country 
was,  that  it  probably  would  not  be  sustained  by  other 
judges!  The  emphasis  of  the  incident  is  upon  the 
assumption  of  a  President  of  the  United  States  that 
he  had  the  right  and  privilege  of  meddling  with  the 
Judicial  Department  as  though  it  represented  him, 
and  that  he  could  discredit  by  public  utterance  the 
verdict  of  a  court.  What  are  courts  worth  if  this  is 
tolerated?  Why  then  may  not  judges  give  the 
weight  of  their  criticism  against  executive  acts?  Was 
there  anything  which  our  founders  sought  to  guard 
more  sacredly  than  the  independence  of  the  coordinate 
departments  of  our  government?  If  an  appeal  is 
to  be  taken  from  a  court,  it  is  not  to  be  taken  to 
the  President,  but  to  a  higher  court.  If  a  court  is 
corrupt,  impeachment  is  possible;  if  in  error,  an  ap- 
peal can  be  taken — executive  rebuke  never. 

Other  incidents  point  to  abuse  of  justice  in  the 
214 


EXACT   JUSTICE 

use  of  courts  for  cases  in  which  the  President  Is  In- 
terested if  they  have  any  meaning  whatever.  If  that 
is  not  the  meaning  of  such  incidents,  they  are  unfor- 
tunate coincidences.  It  may  be  replied  perhaps  that 
such  a  charge  impeaches  the  honor  of  the  judges  and, 
therefore,  is  unworthy.  But  there  should  be  no  sys- 
tem of  appointment  by  which  such  suspicion  could  be 
possible.  Human  nature  is  not  infallible.  If  the 
judges  were  elected,  the  attempt  to  use  particular 
courts  would  not  be  possible.  It  is  well  known  that 
as  soon  as  the  processes  were  begun  against  the  Stand- 
ard Oil  Company  the  newspapers  began  to  weigh  the 
respective  courts  and  reckon  up  the  probabilities  of 
conviction  in  them.  They  even  predicted  the  court  in 
which  cases  would  be  tried  and  their  predictions  came 
true !  A  prominent  New  York  paper  said :  "  Right 
at  the  start  the  wise  men  who  know  what  is  going 
on  in  the  Department  of  Justice  [God  save  the 
mark!]  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  would  be  filed 
in  the  Eighth  Circuit.  It  was  a  cool  calculation  of  the 
chances  of  winning  that  determined  the  trust  breakers 
to  take  St.  Louis  in  preference  to  any  other  circuit. 
The  court  In  that  circuit  is  composed  of  four  judges, 
three  of  whom  were  appointed  by  Roosevelt." 

No  one  can  deny  that  this  was  a  very  common 
thought  among  men  who  followed  the  case.  Where 
was  the  justice?  The  region  was  known  to  be  no- 
toriously hostile  to  the  Oil  Company,  and  the  ma- 
jority of  the  judges  in  the  circuit  were  appointed  by 
the  President,  who  began  the  case  against  the  com- 

215 


THE    RAID    ON    PR(3SPERn  Y 

pany  by  an  extraordinary  attack  presented  to  Con- 
gress. Is  there  an  instance  like  it  among  a  free 
people? 

These  men  were  dragged  fifteen  hundred  miles 
away  from  their  central  offices  into  a  State  that  had 
been  prosecuting  them.  For  what  purpose?  Exact 
justice  ? 

There  are  other  instances  in  this  administration. 
Several  of  them  could  be  named,  like  the  General  Pa- 
per Company,  the  Sugar  Trust,  the  Drug  Trust,  etc., 
etc.,  cases  which  might  have  been  tried  in  other  courts 
and  which  in  common  fairness  and  equity  ought  to 
have  been,  were  arraigned  in  courts  the  judges  of 
which  were  appointed  by  the  President  and  with  full 
knowledge  of  his  declared  interest  in  the  prosecution 
of  them.  What  hope  of  exact  justice  can  there  be  under 
such  circumstances  and  what  hope  in  appealed  cases  if 
the  courts  are  to  be  created  by  the  chief  prosecutor? 

And  it  is  at  this  point  of  the  prosecution  that  the 
case  becomes  more  startling.  How  unevenly  are  the 
balances  of  justice  weighted  when  a  President  of  the 
United  States  becomes  the  prosecutor!  Can  anyone 
doubt  the  influence  upon  his  judges  and  upon  jurors? 
Is  there  anything  in  judicial  proceedings  more  amaz- 
ing in  the  annals  of  our  country?  Under  what 
provision  of  the  Constitution  shall  the  President  be- 
come the  prosecuting  officer  of  the  land?  Is  this 
the  way  the  Constitution  intended  that  he  should  see 
that  the  laws  are  enforced?  It  may  be  popular  with 
a  certain  prejudiced  and  excited  class.    But  is  it  safe? 

216 


EXACT   JUSTICE 

Is  It  law?  Is  it  justice?  The  Constitution  says: 
"  He  shall  from  time  to  time  give  to  Congress  in- 
formation of  the  state  of  the  country  and  recom- 
mend to  their  consideration  such  measures  as  he  shall 
judge  necessary  and  expedient." 

Does  it  require  anything  more  than  common  in- 
telligence to  understand  that  that  does  not  mean 
presidential  attacks  upon  business  by  name  or  upon 
citizens  characterizing  them  in  the  absence  of  indict- 
ment as  criminal  or  dangerous  or  undesirable? 

How  long  since  the  American  people  put  them- 
selves in  the  attitude  by  which  their  respective  busi- 
nesses or  their  persons  may  be  held  up  to  execration 
before  the  civilized  world  by  the  President  of  the 
United  States?  Does  the  ex  parte  report  of  a 
commission  justify  such  a  course?  Then  it  is  an  em- 
phatic reason  why  there  should  be  no  such  commis- 
sions. Are  cases  to  be  known  in  this  country  as 
President's  cases,  brought  to  him  by  his  commissions 
to  vindicate  some  hasty  and  ill-considered  utterance? 
If  so,  how  will  such  cases  stand  in  the  courts? 

We  have  just  had  an  example  of  a  man  acquitted 
against  such  tremendous  influence.  In  what  light 
does  it  place  the  Chief  Executive  who  condemned 
him  before  he  was  tried?  Suppose  he  had  been  con- 
victed, as  it  is  remarkable  that  he  was  not  with  such 
influence  against  him,  how  would  it  leave  the  case? 
There  would  ever  rest  upon  it  a  doubt  of  the  jus- 
tice of  the  verdict  because  of  influences  from  the  head 
of  the  government. 

217 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

Cases  of  so-called  trusts  are  being  decided.  They 
are  weighted  with  the  strongest  influences  that  can 
be  brought  to  bear  against  them,  influences  that  have 
given  authority  to  sensational  fiction,  to  hate  of  com- 
petitors, to  prejudices  of  the  uninformed.  What  is  to 
be  said  for  such  a  travesty  of  justice?  Will  convic- 
tions in  the  cases  be  untainted?  Can  acquittal  be 
expected? 

Can  the  American  people  view  such  a  state  of 
things  with  indifference?  Does  it  not  matter  how 
we  get  at  the  merits  of  causes?  Have  we  aban- 
doned all  interest  in  the  processes  of  the  courts  and 
turned  them  over  to  men  who  seek  to  usurp  them  ? 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  should  begin  a  work  of 
restitution.  When  men  at  the  executive  head  of 
States  or  the  Nation  force  legislation  to  please  them- 
selv^es  and  insist  that  the  representatives  of  the  people 
shall  renounce  their  rights  and  obey  executive  author- 
ity, when  courts  are  told  that  decisions  are  not 
acceptable,  when  citizens  are  condemned  by  executive 
edict  without  judge  or  jury,  when  the  business  of  citi- 
zens is  arraigned  and  accused  as  violation  of  law 
on  ex  parte  reports,  when  a  subservient  prosecuting 
machinery  is  set  in  motion  and  its  actions  are  haled 
to  courts  so  conspicuously  representative  of  the  prose- 
cution as  to  be  matter  of  common  remark,  it  is  time 
for  the  people  of  this  country  to  rub  their  eyes  open 
and  look  about  themselv^es  and  make  some  very  sharp 
inquiries. 

It  does  not  make  any  difference  what  the  charac- 
2i8 


EXACT   JUSTICE 

ter  of  the  accused  may  be.  He  may  be  all  that  he 
is  painted.  We  do  not  help  matters  by  prostituting 
the  order  of  government  to  secure  a  preconceived 
verdict.  The  only  safety  of  the  innocent  is  in  exact 
justice  to  the  guilty. 

Justice  is  a  matter  in  which  there  must  be  no  sus- 
picion. The  arbitrary  acts  of  men  may  be  ap- 
plauded to-day  by  the  parties  in  interest  through 
prejudice,  but  they  pass  into  history.  There  are  acts 
which  certain  classes,  and  especially  those  of  intense 
partisan  feeling,  are  applauding  that  will  be  read  in 
the  history  of  this  time  with  incredible  amazement  by 
students  of  the  progress  of  republics.  And  they  will 
not  be  applauded  as  wisdom  and  justice  in  that  calm 
hour.  The  popular  frenzies,  the  popularity,  the 
glamour  will  have  gone  out  of  them  and  the  only 
thing  left  will  be  a  scale  with  no  man's'  hand  in  the 
balance  to  tip  it  either  way. 

We  must  not  only  protect  our  courts,  the  final 
and  only  infallible  resort  in  contentions  among  men, 
the  only  interpretation  of  legislation  and  executive 
prerogative,  but  we  must  insist  that  designing  clamor- 
ous men  shall  not  refuse  or  pervert  justice  by  the 
creation  of  inimical  prejudices  and  sentiment. 

It  has  happened  that  persistent  misrepresentation 
excites  unreasoning  hate  which  is  Incapable  of  listen- 
ing to  justice,  and  which  often  is  made  furious  by  a 
defense  and  becomes  moblike  in  temper.  When  this 
state  of  things  is  general  among  the  people;  when  it 
is  allowed — even  by  the  disdain  of  Innocence — to  in- 

219 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

tensify  into  blinding  passion,  it  becomes  difficult  to 
secure  from  courts,  which  are  miniatures  of  communi- 
ties, jury  verdicts  of  exact  justice. 

We  are  addicted  to  the  trial  of  causes  by  the 
press  and  common  fame.  Even  professors  in  our  uni- 
versities, although  happily  very  exceptionally,  have 
been  known  to  analyze  the  testimony  of  a  witness  and 
before  a  plea  was  made  or  the  judge  had  charged 
the  jury  render  through  the  newspapers  an  opinion 
absolute  and  infallible  as  to  his  credibility — an  opin- 
ion which  finally  was  not  accepted  by  the  jury. 

It  is  only  a  few  months  since  a  judge  presiding  in 
Herkimer  County,  in  New  York  State,  felt  obliged  to 
vindicate  the  honor  of  his  court  by  summoning  to  the 
bar  certain  reporters  who  took  it  upon  themselves  to 
decide  the  merits  of  the  case  on  trial  before  him  and 
to  render  their  verdict  in  an  offensive  correspondence. 

During  the  prevalent  agitation  against  the  cor- 
porate business  of  the  country  the  feelings  of  a  mis- 
led public  have  taken  shape  in  a  verdict  of  guilty  upon 
the  very  announcement  of  an  indictment. 

The  promulgating  of  certain  strange  doctrines  of 
liability  shows  the  tendency  toward  the  substitution  of 
popular  clamor  for  the  courts.  We  are  told  that  if 
an  employee  is  injured  in  a  factory  the  law  made  to 
cover  such  cases  should  take  no  account  of  contribu- 
tory negligence,  but  the  employer  should  be  compelled 
to  pay  without  contention.  The  utterly  dafr  dema- 
gogy that  seeks  to  capture  the  popular  following 
flings  justice  to  the  winds  and  invites  negligence  and 

220 


EXACT   JUSTICE 

carelessness.  Ninety-five  per  cent  of  injuries  to  em- 
ployees from  machines  is  due  to  the  ignorance  and 
carelessness  with  which  they  run  them.  The  em- 
ployee spoils  the  machine.  The  employer  has  no  re- 
dress if  the  employee  chips  off  a  finger  when  he  does 
it.  He  violates  express  and  particular  orders  in  mix- 
ing cement  and  as  a  result  a  floor  falls  and  destroys 
tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  of  property,  but  in  addi- 
tion to  that  loss  the  employer  must  pay  the  widow  the 
price  of  a  criminally  careless  man's  life. 

The  man  who  furnishes  his  fellow-men  with  op- 
portunity for  livelihood  is  to  have  no  rights  that  any 
man  who  can  rob  him  is  bound  to  respect.  And  this 
pernicious  doctrine  is  sanctioned  by  the  highest 
authority  in  the  land.  There  can  be  no  exact  justice 
until  all  men,  without  regard  to  estate,  condition,  or 
race,  stand  alike  on  terms  of  absolute  equity  before 
the  courts.  A  court  of  justice  can  favor  no  one  ex- 
cept as  it  favors  everyone  by  exact  justice.  It  can 
have  no  friends  and  it  can  have  no  enemies,  and  the 
public  sentiment  that  calls  for  the  attention  of  the 
courts  must  call  for  nothing  but  justice. 

Probably  no  people  in  the  country  to-day  are 
more  subject  to  injustice  and  more  likely  to  be  op- 
pressed in  jury  courts  than  the  capitalists,  and 
especially  those  who  are  at  the  head  of  our  great 
utilities.  They  are  the  men  who  have  need  of  our 
solicitude.  They  are  the  men  who  are  being  denied 
justice. 

The  claims  of  the  people  are  being  overworked 

221 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

and  are  distorted  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  just 
conditions  of  things  in  our  body  politic.  It  has  be- 
come the  fashion  to  champion  them  and  to  hand  out 
a  groveling,  coddling  sympathy  to  the  oppressed 
people  until  there  is  danger  that  we  lose  all  self- 
respect  and  manhood.  We  have  overlooked  the 
great  and  just  demand  of  men  who  are  putting  their 
lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their  reputations  into  the 
gigantic  endeavors  that  are  the  opportunities  of  the 
people. 

In  view  of  the  injustice  of  our  mulctings  and  our 
thousand  forms  of  obstructive  laws,  it  is  remarkable 
that  productive  investments  that  offer,  first  of  all, 
generous  wage  to  mechanics  and  laborers  are  made 
at  all. 

Were  the  spirit  of  oppression  as  general  as  would 
appear  from  the  explosive  attacks  of  the  agitators, 
business  would  find  a  discouraging  field  in  this  free 
country.  But,  fortunately,  the  overwhelming  thou- 
sands of  workingmen  are  on  terms  of  confidence  with 
their  employers  and  extend  them  a  just  and  honor- 
able cooperation.  They  are  contented  and  happy, 
and  to-day  the  surest  source  of  exact  justice  is  found 
by  the  manufacturers  and  commercial  interests  of  the 
land  in  the  thousands  of  cooperators  who  are  not 
swayed  from  their  steadfast  loyalty  by  ignorant, 
malevolent,  and  unjust  agitators. 

The  solid  common  sense  of  this  country'  is  our 
secure  hope.  That  western  jury  that  has  just  ren- 
dered its  verdict  in  the  most  notable  criminal  case  of 

222 


EXACT    JUSTICE 

many  years  was  far  enough  removed  from  the  reach 
of  a  foolish  sympathetic  threat  on  the  one  hand 
and  unfriendly  accusations  on  the  other  to  give 
us  an  example  of  justice  uninfluenced  by  fear  or 
favor. 

When  we  can  place  a  cause  in  this  country  in  the 
hands  of  the  average  man  who  has  no  prejudices 
excited  by  popular  clamor,  the  instinct  of  justice  may 
be  trusted.  God  has  planted  it  deep  in  our  natures. 
And  this  is  shown  in  the  revulsion  of  feeling  that 
often  overtakes  the  application  of  injustice  to  men 
and  causes.  The  animus  is  discovered  and  the  re- 
sentment becomes  as  strong  as  were  the  former 
prejudices. 

Upon  that  instinct  of  justice  and  the  common  fair- 
ness of  the  American  people  may  be  predicted  an 
entire  change  of  sentiment  within  a  short  time  with 
regard  to  the  forms  of  business  and  the  use  of  cap- 
ital cooperatively  which  now  are  used  so  adroitly  by 
men  who  have  no  investments  in  the  prosperity  of 
the  country,  nor  any  concern  as  to  the  consequences 
of  attacks  upon  capital  if  only  such  attacks  can  be 
made  to  serve  their  personal  ambitions. 

That  wisest  man  since  Solomon  estimated  the 
American  character  correctly  when  he  said :  "  You 
cannot  deceive  all  the  people  all  the  time." 

While  the  voice  of  the  agitator  is  in  the  land 
and  is  so  loud  that  it  seems  to  be  all  the  voice  there 
is,  the  thousands  of  Americans  on  the  farms  and  in 
the  trades  quietly  at  work  with  their  hands  are  work- 

223 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

ing  out  these  problems  of  the  hour  and  will  come 
to  their  solution.  And  the  conclusions  if  long  de- 
layed because  of  the  magnitude  of  the  questions  will 
be  sound  and  safe. 

We  shall  find  that  our  difficulty  is  with  the  fact 
that  we  have  something  on  hand  that  has  anticipated 
us  and  that  is  out  of  proportion  to  our  accustomed 
thought,  but  as  a  people  we  have  always  shown  in 
our  thoughtful  and  final  considerations  appreciation 
of  justice  and  fairness.  This  has  caused  us  some- 
times to  give  place  to  causes  that  had  not  vindicated 
their  right  to  a  place  in  our  confidence,  but  they  ap- 
pealed for  fair  play. 

That  is  the  strongest  appeal  that  can  be  made  to 
American  people.  It  sometimes  deceives  them  for 
the  time  by  being  made  a  political  shibboleth,  but  it 
does  not  blind  nor  distort  their  sense  of  justice  very 
long,  however  insincerely  it  may  be  used  by  men  who 
know  its  potent  influence  with  the  average  mind. 

All  that  any  man  needs  or  should  have  in  this 
country  is  exact  justice.  With  that  he  will  accomplish 
success  if  it  can  be  done.  Justice  is  a  legacy  that 
makes  any  man  richer  than  money  can  make  him. 
There  is  more  happiness  in  it  than  there  is  in  mercy. 
No  real  man  with  a  manhood  worthy  of  the  name 
will  ask  to  share  another  man's  property  or  fame, 
nor  covet  anything  he  has.  Give  him  the  liberty  that 
justice  opens  to  a  man  and  his  chief  happiness  will 
be  in  his  own  achievement. 

Nothing  is  more  degrading  as  an  economic  doc- 
224 


EXACT   JUSTICE 

trine  than  the  assertion  of  a  claim  upon  the  fruits  of 
other  men's  enterprise  and  toil,  whether  it  be  the 
labor  of  their  minds  or  of  their  hands.  What  a 
loathsome  sight  is  that  man  who  whimpers  over  the 
successes  of  other  men  and  fills  the  air  with  his  feeble- 
minded plaint  that  others  have  much  and  he  has 
little  and  they  should  give  of  their  much  to  him ! 
Were  there  a  grain  of  a  sense  of  justice  in  him,  were 
there  any  moral  sense,  he  would  arouse  himself  and 
say:  "  I  ask  nothing  of  any  man  but  the  justice  of 
my  opportunity,  which  is  my  inalienable  right  and 
with  that  I  will  make  my  way  in  the  world." 

It  is  no  wonder  that  murder  is  a  cardinal  doc- 
trine with  the  anarchistic  socialist,  whose  code  of 
justice  recognizes  the  right  of  no  one  to  be  more 
prosperous  than  himself.  Justice  condemns  the  self- 
ish and  lazy.  Justice  brands  with  a  scarlet  inefface- 
able mark  of  shame  the  face  of  modern  socialism.  It 
accuses  it  of  weakness  and  degradation  and  points  it 
with  a  finger  of  scorn  to  an  open  door  which  it  has 
set  before  every  man. 

In  those  places  high  and  low  where  effete  theories 
of  economics  have  filled  the  air  with  their  fetid 
vapors  we  must  let  the  inalienable  rights  which 
we  boast  in  our  Declaration  of  Independence  shine 
through  and  reveal  the  just  principles  upon  which 
all  men  must  strive  for  their  own  successes. 

For  the  executive  administration  of  justice  we 
need  statesmanship  and  not  frenzied  demagogy  to 
arouse  a  personal  following;  men  who  can  see  more 

225 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

than  one  side  of  a  proposition,  men  who  discern  that 
progress  has  its  laws  and  do  not  try  to  make  it  with 
hammer  and  nails  and  a  glue  pot,  men  who  have 
faith  in  men  and  who  do  not  assume  that  all  men 
are  actuated  by  unworthy  motives  in  proportion  to 
their  accumulated  wealth.  We  want  a  few  plain, 
simple  laws  that  help  men  in  all  kinds  of  business  to 
remember  honesty,  that  will  compel  properties  to 
show  their  true  values,  bonds  to  have  beneath  them 
full  value  secured  against  fluctuation  in  business, 
property  to  be  worth  as  much  as  the  stocks  that 
represent  it,  the  exact  value  of  every  stock  on  the 
market  as  compared  with  the  condition  and  earnings 
of  the  property  to  protect  poor  men  in  their  modest 
investments,  protection  of  the  people  against  unjust 
and  oppressive  cornering  of  foods  for  purposes  of 
extravagant  profit — a  few  plain  laws  to  protect  cap- 
ital against  the  despotism  of  labor  organizations  and 
the  worklngmen  against  the  careless  or  purposed  op- 
pression of  the  employer  in  those  exceptional  cases 
that  always  will  exist. 

We  need  as  little  law  as  possible  and  as  great 
good  will  as  possible  in  all  human  endeavor.  We 
need  to  Incorporate  Into  practical  life  the  Golden 
Rule.  With  these  simple  principles  of  exact  justice, 
give  us  men  to  make  our  laws  who  are  not  fright- 
ened by  the  dreams  of  Indigestion,  but  who,  clear- 
brained  and  calm,  see  a  mighty  future  of  which  they 
are  not  afraid. 

We  can  safely  defraud  no  man,  neither  the  la- 
226 


EXACT   JUSTICE 

borer  out  of  his  wage  nor  the  capltahst  out  of  his 
investment.  We  cannot  injure  one  without  equal  or 
greater  injury  to  the  other.  We  have  nothing  that 
we  can  give  to  either  except  justice.  There  is  noth- 
ing that  we  should  take  from  either  but  injustice. 
Whatever  is  unjust  both  must  give  up.  With  their 
just  rights  both  will  prosper  and  their  united  pros- 
perity will  make  ours  the  greatest  country  in  the 
world.  Upon  these  principles  it  will  endure  for- 
ever. 

Nothing  is  plainer  than  that  the  application  of 
exact  justice  does  not  consist  in  a  hunt  for  cases  for 
purposes  of  prosecution.  If  absolute  perfection  is 
enforced,  all  men  would  go  to  prison  and  all  busi- 
ness would  be  estopped.  We  are  having  the  extreme 
of  folly  in  corporation  prosecutions  by  the  adminis- 
tration. The  Attorney  General  gives  out  that  all 
cases  will  be  prosecuted  in  which  there  is  hope  of 
conviction.  Men  are  to  be  sent  to  prison  if  possible. 
Think  of  such  procedure  in  the  face  of  a  universal 
business  practice  permitted  by  the  government  and 
common  to  all  commerce  until  within  a  few  years, 
and  forbidden  now  chiefly  by  a  law  which  the 
President  has  said  would  ruin  all  businesses  if  en- 
forced. 

Would  It  not  seem  like  a  just  wisdom,  the  com- 
mon sense  of  justice,  to  wait  the  new  adjustment  of 
railroads  and  corporations  to  the  present  peculiar, 
and  in  some  of  their  features  impracticable  and  con- 
fusing, laws  and  prosecute  as  few  cases  and  disturb 

227 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

the  business  of  the  country  as  little  as  possible? 
The  laws  which  we  have  and  with  which  we  are 
convicting  corporations  are  so  monstrous,  so  sugges- 
tive of  the  dark  ages  of  the  administration  of  courts, 
so  confiscatory  of  property,  so  opposed  to  our  Consti- 
tution and  all  common  equity  that  their  enforcement 
is  the  very  acme  of  injustice. 

One  finds  himself  dazed  by  the  proceedings  of  the 
hour  and  asks  himself:  "  Is  this  1907  and  is  this 
America  ?  "  He  recalls  other  epochs  and  other  scenes 
similar,  embalmed  in  history,  in  ages  from  which  we 
congratulate  ourselves  that  we  have  emerged,  and  he 
wonders  how  such  history  can  repeat  itself  among 
a  free  people  in  such  times  as  these. 

The  scales  of  justice  carried  by  the  outstretched 
arm  of  demagogic  spite  and  political  competition  are 
being  rattled  defiantly,  with  loud  threats,  in  the  face 
of  the  railway  and  other  corporations  to  excite  certain 
of  the  people  and  gratify  their  misguided  prejudices. 
Until  the  millions  of  our  sober  and  rational  people  in 
an  intelligent  and  loyal  uprising  bring  those  scales 
back  and  place  them  in  the  temple  of  justice  and 
guard  that  temple's  mighty  doors  against  the  entrance 
of  everything  but  truth  and  reason,  there  can  be  no 
safety  in  this  country  to  any  man,  high  or  low,  or  to 
any  business,  great  or  small. 

Our  peril  is  extreme  when  a  court  audience  and 
the  public  press  applaud  visible  and  unmistakable 
prejudices  and  revengeful  anger  in  any  judicial  ver- 
dict.    With  just  pride  hitherto  in  the  exact  fairness 

228 


EXACT   JUSTICE 

and  calm  judicial  dignity  of  our  judges  and  the  his- 
toric justice  of  our  country,  we  should  guard  against 
any  degeneracy  to  gallery  play  by  a  judge  with  in- 
stant and  vigorous  resentment  and  rebuke.  We 
should  brand  such  a  judge  with  infamy  as  the  safest 
protection  of  the  courts.  Any  judge  who  harangues 
the  public  from  his  bench  with  accusations  of  de- 
fendants by  the  use  of  false  and  libelous  charges 
brought  into  the  case  from  outside  of  his  court  or 
in  a  case  which  he  knows  is  to  be  still  further  ad- 
judicated by  upper  courts  and  therefore  is  not  settled, 
smirches  the  ermine  of  justice.  There  is  one  thing 
that  must  be  absolutely  above  suspicion  of  personal 
feeling  or  party  strife  or  purchase,  and  that  is 
justice. 

Let  any  judge  who  uses  his  bench  to  gratify  a 
spiteful  feeling  against  lawyers  of  a  cause  [a  cowardly 
act]  or  to  slander  and  libel  the  cause  he  is  adjudicat- 
ing, in  terms  not  contained  in  either  the  indictment 
or  the  verdict,  know  that  he  will  be  discredited,  dis- 
trusted, and  condemned  as  far  as  his  name  is  known 
and  history  is  read,  when  judicial  calm  shall  have 
come  and  passion  and  self-interest  have  gone  out  of 
the  case  and  left  it  to  its  merits  only. 

That  thing  which  will  call  us  back  to  a  judicial 
temperament  is  a  serious  contemplation  of  the  coming 
times  with  their  infallible  and  impartial  judgment  of 
our  acts. 

There  is  nothing  that  can  injure  us,  that  can  ob- 
struct our  progress  as  a  country,  but  injustice  to  any 
16  229 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

class  of  our  citizens.  We  have  every  physical  ele- 
ment of  success,  every  condition  of  civilization  at  its 
very  summit.  Justice  is  as  free  as  light.  We  should 
allow  no  vapors  distilled  from  selfish  passion  and 
personal  resentment,  nor  the  fogs  of  ignorant  preju- 
dice, to  pass  across  the  face  of  it. 


CHAPTER    XIV 

SWOLLEN   FORTUNES 

WE  are  a  people  given  to  indulging  in 
spasms !  They  are  intense  while  they 
last.  They  are  so  unreasonable  and  un- 
reasoning that  they  present  a  fine  opportunity  for  the 
adroit  demagogue.  For  some  time  we  have  been  in 
the  grip  of  a  mighty  spasm  over  "  corporate  wealth  " 
and  "  swollen  fortunes."  These  are  coined  and  cur- 
rent phrases.  All  of  our  national  ills  are  being  stated 
in  this  formula.  It  has  become  the  political  shib- 
boleth. All  political  parties  and  all  socialistic  classes 
use  it  and  the  people  applaud.  Down  with  the  rich ! 
Puncture  the  swollen  fortunes !  Make  the  rich 
poor  and  all  the  poor  will  be  rich !  Destroy  the  cor- 
porations, hamper  them,  obstruct  them !  Sue  them  in 
the  courts!  Blackmail  them  in  the  press!  Tie  the 
strings  of  the  Lilliputians  to  them  in  Congress  and 
bind  them  and  the  individual  can  have  a  chance! 

Make  the  returns  of  great  business  sufficiently 
small  and  uncertain  by  petty  legislative  restrictions 
and  we  shall  not  be  troubled  by  the  genius  of  a 
Rockefeller,  a  Morgan,  a  Carnegie. 

231 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

The  little  fellows  will  be  big  enough  for  the  lit- 
tle things  to  be  done.  The  age,  the  land,  the  dis- 
coveries are  not  suited  to  the  gigantic  things  which 
embarrass  little  men.  Such  great  enterprises  take 
away  the  rights  of  the  people,  especially  of  the  in- 
dividual. Such  great  men  discourage  common  men. 
They  are  a  menace. 

It  is  a  crime  for  several  men  to  have  developed 
the  power  of  giving  employment  to  75,000  or  150,- 
000  men,  provided  the  promoters  are  to  get  anything 
themselves  at  all  commensurate  with  the  things  they 
have  invested  or  have  done  for  their  fellow-men. 
Their  millions  are  swollen  fortunes ! 

Strange  how  fortunes  are  the  only  thing  that  has 
swollen.  At  any  rate  they  seem  to  be  the  only  swell- 
ing that  we  are  anxious  to  doctor.  How  about 
salaries  and  wages  ?  Have  they  not  swollen  ?  From 
the  President's  salary  which  has  swollen  to  four  times 
its  former  size  in  a  generation,  with  $25,000  added 
for  housekeeping,  to  all  other  salaries  of  the  country, 
including  the  salary  of  congressmen,  all  salaries 
everywhere  have  swollen.  But  there  is  nothing  bad 
about  it.  It  does  not  worry  our  mighty  regulators 
who  have  the  swollen  salaries.  It  is  only  fortunes 
that  have  dangerously  swollen ! 

Wages  have  swollen.  They  have  swollen  from 
a  dollar  and  a  half  to  four  and  six  dollars  a  day. 
Every  little  while  they  are  taken  with  a  danger- 
ous swelling,  a  kind  of  goiter  that  refuses  to  de- 
crease.    And  the  only  thing  that  shrinks  is  the  hours 

232 


SWOLLEN    FORTUNES 

of    labor,    which    is    another   way   of    swelling   the 
wages. 

But  nobody  seems  alarmed  at  swollen  salaries  or 
swollen  wages.  It  is  swollen  fortunes  that  worry 
us — especially  those  got  by  corporation  dividends ! 

Oh,  it  will  be  a  great  world  to  live  in  when  we  get 
great  wages  for  everybody  and  nobody  has  anything 
to  pay  them  with!  It  will  be  the  acme  of  statesman- 
ship of  which  neither  our  fathers  nor  any  economist 
ever  dreamed  when  we  shall  have  so  discredited  busi- 
ness, especially  the  greatest  forms  of  business,  by 
regulating  them,  that  men  of  commercial  genius  will 
be  filled  with  fear  and  distrust  and  refuse  to  put  the 
utmost  of  their  powers  into  the  development  of  our 
resources  and  the  making  of  our  innumerable  forms 
of  industry  and  labor. 

To  be  sure  the  world  never  has  witnessed  such 
marvelous  prosperity  of  every  kind,  such  increase  of 
happy  homes,  such  savings  in  banks,  such  farmsteads, 
such  wage  for  mechanic  and  laborer,  such  thrift  of 
every  kind,  such  facility  of  transportation,  such  in- 
vention of  labor-saving  machines,  such  schools,  such 
wealth  of  periodical  and  daily  literature,  such  expan- 
sion of  territory,  all  under  the  law  of  common  sense 
and  common  interest  and  competition;  but  then  we 
must  slow  up  now  as  we  cross  the  line  into  the  new 
century  and  run  upon  a  switch  and  stand  there  on  a 
siding  regulated  until  those  who  want  to  run  on  the 
main  line  with  their  pony  engines  can  go  by  the  men 
whose  powers  have  made  the  right  of  way. 

233 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

It  is  discovered  that  progress  is  not  progressing 
safely.  It  must  be  supervised  and  controlled  by  the 
President  and  Congress.  Men  who  vt'ant  to  sell  their 
goods  as  cheaply  as  the  corporations  do  have  proved 
voiceful  and  rend  the  air  with  their  plaint,  and  they 
have  the  votes  1  "  The  great  corporations,  the  great 
fortunes  generally  that  are  used  in  business  shall  be 
so  used  as  to  be  in  the  interest  of  and  not  against 
the  interests  of  (these)  ordinary  people!  " 

The  men  who  sell  a  hundred  thousand  barrels 
of  flour  can  sell  me  my  barrel  for  $4.00,  but  the  man 
who  sells  a  thousand  barrels  must  have  his  chance  to 
sell  me  my  barrel  for  $4.50.  You  see  it  makes  small 
difference  with  a  hundred  thousand  people  who  save 
fifty  cents  apiece  and  one  man  gets  fifty  cents  each 
from  one  hundred  thousand  men.  It  promotes  in- 
dividual trade  and  changes  the  ownership  of  the 
swollen  fortune.  It  is  a  great  scheme.  Perhaps 
it  will  stop  fortunes  from  swelling  altogether ! 

You  see  it  is  wrong  for  several  men  to  put  to- 
gether their  ability  and  their  fortunes  and  secure  to 
the  people  the  development  of  industries  and  bring 
to  their  doors  everywhere  the  necessities  and  com- 
forts of  life  at  a  compensation  with  which  men  act- 
ing alone  cannot  compete  and  they  should  be  stopped ! 
They  should  ask  as  great  a  price  as  the  individual 
with  his  little  facilities  or  the  small  company  would 
have  to  ask. 

You  know  a  railroad  can  carry  a  trainload  of 
fifty  cars  of  western  steers  at  half  the  rate  of  one 

234 


SWOLLEN    FORTUNES 

carload  in  a  train.  And  the  same  is  true  of  train- 
loads  of  flour  or  oil  tanks,  but  it  is  dangerous 
because  it  is  done  with  swollen  fortunes.  The 
bonum  publicum  is  threatened  by  such  service  if  the 
originators  of  vast  schemes,  Yike.  refrigerator  cars  for 
instance,  get  by  a  small  per  cent  a  great  aggregate 
out  of  the  immense  capital  invested. 

It  should  be  stopped.  It  is  too  big  for  an  age  of 
steam  and  lightning  and  a  miracle  of  machinery. 
These  things  are  getting  too  big.  They  are  swollen. 
Reduce  them.  Of  course,  if  the  trouble  is  a  swell- 
ing, you  must  reduce  it.  You  don't  want  to  regulate 
a  swollen  fortune.  You  must  determine  what  a 
normal  twentieth-century  fortune  is  and  put  on  the 
political  leeches  and  get  the  big  one  down  to  the 
standard  size.  There  is  not  much  danger  that  the 
little  ones  will  get  too  big  after  the  process  of  reduc- 
tion is  started. 

But  what  if  it  is  true  that  the  most  swollen  for- 
tunes are  only  in  harmonious  proportion  to  the  re- 
sources of  the  country  and  to  all  of  the  gigantic 
movements  of  human  endeavor.  We  have  seen  how 
the  salaries  of  men  in  business  and  men  in  Congress 
and  the  salary  of  the  President  of  the  United  States 
have  vastly  swollen,  and  we  certainly  cannot  have 
overlooked  the  enormous  increase  of  the  volume 
of  manufacture  and  trade  in  a  brief  generation. 
Are  the  swollen  fortunes  outrunning  the  mighty 
strides  of  commerce  and  becoming  disproportionate? 
If  they  are,  it  would  not  follow  that  there  Is  ground 

235 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

for  fear  in  the  mere  bulk  unless  we  can  show  that 
they  are  taken  out  of  the  people  of  humbler  circum- 
stances and  are  misused  to  pervert  government  and 
obstruct  the  liberties  of  the  people.  If  we  find  that 
they  not  only  have  been  made  by  a  gigantic  com- 
merce but  have  also  made  the  present  proportions  of 
business  and  furnished  the  land  with  its  industries  and 
made  the  luxuries  of  the  rich  the  common  blessings 
of  the  poor,  if  we  find  that  they  are  constantly  re- 
turning whence  they  came  and  passing  through  the 
hands  of  the  common  people,  who  must  always  de- 
pend upon  the  capitalists  for  their  profitable  and 
happy  industry,  then  it  may  occur  to  us  that  we  are 
fighting  a  law  and  a  proportion  which  we  have  failed 
to  study  and  appreciate. 

A  mountain  height  or  peak  overawes  us  stand- 
ing out  of  the  plain.  The  highest  point  of  the 
Rockies  is  modified  by  the  mighty  range  of  which  it 
Is  a  part. 

We  measure  up  from  the  poor  to  the  man  of 
swollen  fortunes  and  become  alarmed  by  the  compari- 
son. What  are  we  coming  to  by  such  a  tremendous 
disparity?  It  were  better  reasoning  and  less  dis- 
quieting to  compare  the  laborer  of  to-day  with  the 
laborers  of  a  century  ago  and  the  swollen  fortunes 
with  the  whole  flood  tide  of  commerce  and  prosperity. 
Shall  we  turn  back  these  tides?  We  must  if  we  stop 
the  swollen  fortunes  at  a  sum  agreed  upon.  Agreed 
by  whose  authority — the  socialists  of  the  country? 

In  1870  the  total  wealth  of  our  country  was 
236 


SWOLLEN    FORTUNES 

$30,068,518,507;  In  1906  it  was  $110,000,000,000. 
In  1870  the  per  capita  distribution  of  wealth  was  cal- 
culated at  $772.51;  in  1906  it  is  set  down  as  $1,- 
292.13.  The  railroads  of  the  country  have  grown 
from  a  mileage  of  52,922  miles  in  1870  to  212,624 
miles  in  1906,  with  88,707  miles  of  second  tracks 
and  sidings.  The  capitalization  of  the  railroads  in 
1870  (stocks  and  bonds)  was  $2,664,627,645;  In 
1905  it  was  $14,167,218,546.  What  these  na- 
tional figures  tell  of  growth  can  be  made  equally 
clear  by  a  glance  at  any  one  of  the  great  businesses. 
None  can  be  more  significant  than  iron  and  steel.  In 
1870  the  Nation's  output  of  pig  iron  was  1,665,179 
tons,  and  of  steel  68,750  tons.  In  1905  our  furnaces 
gave  forth  22,992,380  tons  of  pig  iron  and  in  1906 
were  manufactured  23,365,000  tons  of  steel.  In  capi- 
talization the  United  States  Steel  Company  stands  fdr 
$950,000,000,  while  ten  other  plants  out  of  the  vast 
number  of  Iron  mills  and  steel  concerns  show  a  cap- 
italization of  $357,000,000.  The  coal  mined  in 
1870  was  33,000,000  tons;  In  1905  It  had  risen  to 
393,000,000  tons.  The  consumption  of  such  a  staple 
as  sugar  has  grown  from  607,834  tons  in  1870  to 
2,632,216  tons  In  1905.  The  wheat  crop  of  1870 
was  235,884,700  bushels;  In  1905  It  was  692,979,- 
489  bushels.  The  entire  electric  lighting  and  electro- 
motive industries  and  the  entire  telephone  business 
have  been  added  during  this  period  to  the  Nation's 
wealth.  The  entire  automobile  industry  has  been 
evolved.     Multiply  by  hundreds  the  figures  given  of 

237 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

a  few  Industries  and  you  will  still  fall  of  grasping 
that  tremendous  power  which  Is  exerted  in  the  direc- 
tion of  growth  in  the  United  States,  where  the  so- 
called  industrial  "  trusts "  number  over  500  and 
cover  every  branch  of  trade,  transport,  and  manufac- 
ture. What  a  percentage  of  general  expansion  is 
implied  in  the  fact  that  between  1900  and  1907  the 
increase  in  the  value  of  farm  land  property  has  been 
$8,000,000,000,  or  nearly  forty  per  cent. 

Is  it  not  astonishing  that  men  with  these  figures 
before  them,  for  they  are  accessible  to  everyone  who 
will  turn  to  the  United  States  Census,  will  raise  an 
alarm  about  swollen  fortunes? 

The  alarm  must  go  back  to  business  itself.  Per- 
haps this  is  what  is  meant  by  the  savage  attacks  that 
are  being  made  upon  corporate  business.  Are  we 
taking  too  much  wheat  off  our  fields,  too  much  iron 
from  our  mountains,  too  much  oil  out  of  our  valleys, 
and  setting  too  many  thousands  of  wheels  of  ma- 
chinery in  motion  ?  Surely  we  cannot  do  these  things 
and  use  the  business  genius  and  forces  of  such  an 
age  and  not  increase  the  fortunes  of  men. 

The  "  swollen  fortune  "  is  not  swollen  but  only 
in  healthy  proportion  to  a  tremendous  time,  when  by 
the  sciences  and  the  arts  the  earth  is  yielding  re- 
munerations in  proportion  to  the  ability  of  men,  the 
combined  power  of  men  to  dev^elop  and  use  them. 

One  hundred  million  dollars  is  no  more  a 
swollen  fortune  to-day  than  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  century.  Swol- 

238 


SWOLLEN    FORTUNES 

len  salaries  and  swollen  wage  are  the  proportionate 
pay  that  vast  enterprises  are  giving  to  skilled  labor 
and  service. 

Strange  that  the  mighty  progress  which  has  come 
on  so  splendidly  for  these  many  decades  has  all  at 
once  become  a  menace  to  the  body  politic. 

But  what  are  we  going  to  do  with  swollen  for- 
tunes? Are  we  going  to  steal  them  because  it  is 
wicked  for  men  to  have  them?  Are  we  going  to 
sequestrate  them  by  a  class  taxation,  by  a  tax  upon 
men's  ability  and  enterprise?  Why  not  send  a  file 
of  soldiers  and  take  them  for  the  public  good? 
There  are  examples  in  the  world's  history  to  justify 
it.  To  be  sure,  we  claim  a  higher  form  of  civiliza- 
tion, but  it  is  never  difficult  to  drop  back,  and  at  the 
rate  we  have  been  going  in  that  direction  lately  it 
soon  will  not  be  far  for  us  to  go. 

In  the  meantime  having  conferred  further  with 
the  socialists  as  to  how  much  of  a  fortune  is  per- 
missible to  a  man,  what  a  healthy  unswollen  fortune 
is,  let  us  take  all  above  that  sum  for  the  State.  The 
little  point  of  difference  which  might  arise  as  to  where 
the  swelling  begins  or  where  we  should  begin  the  pre- 
vention of  the  same  can  be  compromised  and  settled 
if  we  do  not  embarrass  the  question  by  conferring 
with  the  swollen  fortune  owner. 

There  might  be  some  further  difficulty,  because 
what  would  be  a  swollen  fortune  in  a  place  like  Syra- 
cuse would  not  be  a  swollen  fortune  in  New  York, 
and  what  would  be  a  swollen  fortune  with  one  man 

239 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

would  not  be  with  another,  and  a  swollen  fortune 
would  be  invested  and  made  a  greater  swelling  with 
some  men,  and  would  be  quickly  dissipated  and 
scattered,  if  the  government  would  be  only  a  little 
patient,  with  other  men. 

But  then  all  of  that  could  be  easily  adjusted  by 
another  commission  to  investigate  and  to  study  care- 
fully these  things  or  perhaps  the  receivers  proposed 
by  the  Attorney  General  could  have  their  functions 
enlarged  to  cover  such  intricacies ! 

There  would  come  up  another  embarrassment, 
perhaps.  Indeed,  there  are  almost  as  many  of  them 
and  they  prove  about  as  expensive  to  the  country  as 
it  would  be  to  let  men  do  business  up  to  the  full 
measure  of  their  capacity.  The  embarrassment  to 
which  I  refer  is  the  disposition  of  the  per  cent  of 
these  fortunes  which  it  is  wicked  for  Individuals  to 
retain  in  their  possession  and  which  the  government 
must  take  to  the  end  of  righteousness. 

We  have  an  embarrassing  surplus  of  revenue  now 
and  the  prospect  Is  that  it  is  to  increase  with  our 
population  and  the  development  of  our  country,  yet 
in  its  infancy.  What  will  our  revenues  be  when,  as 
Emerson  said  of  England,  our  country  Is  cultivated 
with  a  lead  pencil  ?  What  shall  we  do  with  the  swol- 
len part  of  the  fortunes  we  have  taken  away  from 
our  enterprising  and  successful  citizens?  They  are 
sure  to  Increase.  They  are  becoming  quite  common. 
The  income  to  the  government  will  become  consid- 
erable.    What  shall  we  do  with  it?     Shall  we  hoard 

240 


SWOLLEN    FORTUNES 

it  and  keep  it  religiously  from  doing  harm  and  op- 
pressing the  people  by  circulating  it  in  wages  and  pur- 
chases and  trade  and  manufacture  with  its  octopus 
tentacles?  Who  will  keep  it  and  guard  it?  Shall 
we  distribute  it  per  capita  to  the  poor?  Possibly  we 
could,  for  that  seems  to  be  the  doctrine  now  in  vogue. 
But  why  not  assign  a  pro  rata  of  this  benevolence 
to  all  men  who  are  rich  above  a  certain  amount  and 
enforce  the  obligation  by  a  commission?  That  is 
easy — it  is  only  a  little  step  farther  in  paternalism. 

Possibly,  however,  the  government  would  take 
these  swollen  fortunes  which  it  has  stolen  and  invest 
them  in  public  works  or  in  a  thousand  forms  of  busi- 
ness which  would  bless  the  people,  business  from 
which  would  be  eliminated  all  of  the  wickedness  of 
trusts  and  corporations,  with  the  management  placed 
in  the  hands  of  truly  good  men. 

The  success  of  such  governmental  business  has 
been  so  signal  in  all  lands  and  times  that  it  is  strange 
that  the  thought  did  not  occur  to  some  mighty 
economist  long  ago  to  do  the  world's  business,  on 
from  the  danger  point  of  wealth,  by  a  Commercial 
Commission  of  the  government.  That  such  a  simple 
solution  of  guarding  the  interests  of  the  people  from 
predatory  wealth  and  securing  a  perfectly  fair  and 
equable  adjustment  of  business  rights  and  privileges 
should  have  been  overlooked  and  left  to  the  discovery 
of  men  who  never  had  even  a  business  training, 
greatly  detracts  from  the  reputation  of  an  Alexander 
Hamilton  and  a  James  Madison  and  the  men  of  the 

241 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

past,  trained  in  the  schools  of  both  governmental  and 
commercial  economy.  So  are  the  wisest  sometimes 
humiliated  and  their  fame  blighted  by  the  discoverers 
who,  passing  over  the  ground  after  them,  pick  up 
from  the  very  surface  the  wisdom  which  they  failed 
to  find  in  weary  searchings. 

It  is  not  strange  that  it  is  so  with  regard  to  for- 
tunes, for  it  always  has  been  easier  to  dispose  of  for- 
tunes than  to  make  them,  and  men  everywhere  have 
had  a  fondness  for  managing  other  men's  business. 

But  a  very  curious  thing  is  that  the  men  who 
would  reduce  the  swelling  of  swollen  fortunes  never 
have  had  anything  to  do  with  swelling  them !  The 
men  who  would  regulate  them  probably  could  not 
manage  them  so  as  to  keep  them  if  they  had  them. 

They  have  what  they  have  by  legacy  or  the  fruits 
of  an  age  the  prosperity  of  which  has  been  made 
by  men  who,  it  is  discovered  all  at  once,  need  regu- 
lating! How  would  such  men  regulate  their  own 
fortunes  if  they  had  them? 

Does  anyone  imagine  that  the  men  who  are  chat- 
tering about  "  predatory  wealth  "  and  "  corporation 
peril "  or  "  swollen  fortunes  "  would  refuse  from 
purely  altruistic  motives  to  take  over  the  stock  of 
corporations,  in  Rockefeller  swollen  proportions  even, 
and  manage  them  privately? 

If  we  are  to  have  the  regulation  in  such  destruc- 
tive forms,  the  logical  and  consistent  thing  is  for  the 
managers  to  own  them.  Mr.  Bryan  is  right.  Let 
us    own   the   property   we   propose   to   regulate   or 

242 


SWOLLEN    FORTUNES 

supervise,  then  we  can  take  the  consequences  of  our 
blundering.  That  would  be  honorable.  But  to  de- 
stroy commerce  and  trade  for  which  we  have  an  aca- 
demic responsibility  only — as  we  began  to  do  a  year 
and  a  half  ago — is  unfair,  however  easy  and  safe  it 
may  be.  The  consequences  are  so  distributed  and  dif- 
fused among  85,000,000  people  that  the  regulators 
experience  no  personal  loss.  If  we  owned  the  business 
it  would  have  a  different  logic.  We  would  argue  It 
on  more  conservative  and  cautious  premises.  We 
would  be  careful  how  we  regulate  and  control. 

The  people  do  their  own  spelling !  They  seem 
to  have  a  different  interest  in  the  control  of  it.  It 
does  not  regulate.  Let  them  be  common  stockholders 
and  what  of  business  requires  regulating  would  be 
done  with  cautious  wisdom  with  reference  to  the 
profits  and  the  losses  and  not  recklessly,  and  foolishly. 

Probably  no  men  in  this  country  are  more  dis- 
qualified for  the  control  and  supervision  of  the  cor- 
porations or  swollen  fortunes  than  the  majority 
of  legislators  and  congressmen.  Any  attempts  from 
that  source  can  only  result  In  disaster.  Any  proposi- 
tion from  that  source  to  supervise  and  control  the 
wealth  of  the  land  is  a  gigantic  piece  of  imperti- 
nence that  to  coming  generations  will  be  incredible 
of  an  age  of  intelligence  like  this. 

It  cannot  be  replied  that  such  men  reflect  the 
ability  of  the  business  world  or.  Indeed,  that  they 
reflect  the  average  intelligence  of  the  people  who 
choose  them.     That  were  not  sufl'iclent.     The  work 

243 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

is  not  average,  but  extraordinary.  And  the  Congress 
is  not  the  choice  of  the  people,  but  of  the  members 
themselves  in  probably  a  majority  of  cases.  And  if 
we  are  to  attempt  adjustments  of  the  commercial 
rights  of  men  it  should  be  by  trained  men,  mighty 
in  ability  and  schooled  in  experience. 

The  whole  assault  upon  corporate  business  to-day 
is  at  the  bidding  of  politics,  which  is  throwing  its  tub 
to  divert  the  socialistic  whale.  Nothing  could  be 
more  crude,  impulsive,  and  frivolous  than  most  of 
the  utterances  that  are  being  sent  out  about  wealth 
and  the  magnitude  and  processes  of  business.  The 
frantic  effort  at  lawmaking  and  the  plunging  about  for 
violators  of  law  to  punish  and  the  riotous  accusations 
against  everything  and  every  man  that  represents  the 
magnitude  of  our  times  show  the  confusion  of  the 
public  mind  under  the  leadership  of  men  who  fail  to 
grasp  the  age  or  who  are  using  its  fevered  excitement 
for  selfish  purposes. 

We  have  laws  enough  without  special  legislation 
to  protect  the  rights  of  every  man  and  guard  all  com- 
merce and  all  business  against  dishonesty.  And  hon- 
esty is  the  only  thing  we  have  any  right  to  insist 
upon.  We  have  no  right  to  oppress  or  protect  or 
control  or  supervise  any  form  of  business  by  legis- 
lation or  executive  proclamation  in  the  Interest  of  any 
class  of  men,  rich  or  poor,  corporate  or  individual. 

Swollen  fortunes  are  a  thousandfold  less  dan- 
gerous to  our  land  and  people  than  swollen  dem- 
agogy! 

244 


SWOLLEN    FORTUNES 

The  swelling  of  fortunes  is  healthy  and  an  In- 
finite blessing  to  the  "  ordinary  people."  It  is  the 
push  of  a  vital  force.  It  is  the  earth  yielding  her 
Increase  under  the  cultivation  of  men  who  have 
learned  the  secrets  of  her  power.  It  is  natural.  It 
alarms  only  those  who  have  not  learned  to  think  in 
the  proportions  of  our  tremendous  age.  When  men 
come  to  positions  of  mighty  legislative  and  executive 
power  with  unequal  thought  power  and  without  ap- 
preciation of  the  forces  and  proportions  of  their  age, 
great  mischief  is  done.  They  set  the  dial  hands  back 
against  the  sun.  The  trouble  with  these  times  is 
that  they  have  outgrown  the  men  who  are  making 
our  laws  and  administering  them.  That  has  been  ap- 
parent to  any  mind  which  has  critically  studied  the 
trend  of  the  past  two  decades.  The  disproportion 
between  the  forces  of  the  age — the  awe-Inspiring 
energies  In  possible  appliances,  the  magnitudes  of 
things  to  be  done,  and  the  men  who  have  been 
sent  to  legislative  halls  to  adopt  governing  and  con- 
trolling machinery  to  do  them — is  startling  and 
depressing.  They  have  discharged  their  mighty 
responsibility  by  an  attempt  to  decrease  the  capability 
of  men  who  are  using  swollen  fortunes  to  extend 
the  world's  commerce.  They  have  applied  them- 
selves to  reduce  the  swelling  of  a  mighty  normal  and 
healthy  growth  as  though  it  were  the  swelling  of 
disease  or  some  sudden  inflammation.  They  cannot 
account  for  the  expansion  of  an  age,  into  which  they 
have  come  by  being  born  out  of  season,  upon  any 
17  245 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

other  principle  than  a  perilous  disorder,  a  diseased 
swelling!  No  one  can  tell,  therefore,  what  new  ab- 
surdities will  be  projected  into  the  statutes  by  Con- 
gress or  the  Legislature. 

Men  have  kept  silent  who  ought  to  have  spoken 
long  ago.  There  is  a  minority  in  Congress  that 
should  control — minority  in  numbers,  but  a  mighty 
majority  in  ability  and  character.  Their  mission  is 
not  to  secure  the  perpetuity  of  a  party.  The  plain- 
est and  most  sacred  principles  fundamental  to  the 
commonest  rights  of  the  "  ordinary  people,"  who  are 
the  great  people,  are  being  thrown  aside  as  worth- 
less and  useless,  with  startling  contempt  for  usage 
and  law.  Courts  of  justice  are  dragooned  into  a 
practical  subserviency  to  executive  authority,  to  the 
peril  of  justice  between  men  and  men;  arbitrary 
authority  is  being  asserted  promiscuously,  regardless 
of  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  individual,  men  being 
condemned  without  conviction  and  told  to  clear  them- 
selves after  they  are  condemned.  If  they  want  mercy. 
Commerce,  traffic,  transportation,  manufactures  are 
placed  under  espionage,  haled  before  the  courts  and 
threatened  with  regulation  by  socialistic  law  until 
men  no  longer  know  what  property  is  or  what  are 
the  rights  of  business  as  once  Interpreted  by  those 
principles  which  were  supposed  to  have  been  estab- 
lished by  the  wisdom  of  the  centuries.  And  the 
answer  to  It  all  Is  a  socialism  as  rank  and  de- 
structive as  anything  that  Fourier  taught  or  the  com- 
munism which  sprang  out  of  his  teachings. 

246 


SWOLLEN    FORTUNES 

"  Corporation,"  "  swollen  fortune,"  "  million- 
aire "  have  become  synonymous  with  commercial 
tyranny  and  heartless  selfishness,  cartooned  as  beasts 
preying  upon  the  ordinary  people.  This  process  of 
education  has  been  going  on  until  men  hide  every  fal- 
lacy behind  these  words.  If  a  man  damns  a  corpora- 
tion, he  is  a  friend  of  the  ordinary  people ;  if  he  sneers 
at  millionaires  and  warns  of  the  danger  threatening 
from  swollen  fortunes,  he  will  be  elected  to  Congress. 
The  political  leaders  of  both  great  parties  have  played 
into  the  hands  of  a  dangerous  socialism,  condemned 
by  all  sober-thinking  people  a  decade  ago.  Swollen 
fortunes  are  a  menace  only  when  they  are  withheld 
from  the  people  and  are  used  on  the  limited  wants  of 
miserly  owners.  Millionaires  have  made  our  age  pos- 
sible by  lavish  inv^estment  in  all  manner  of  develop- 
ment. The  millionaire  could  have  blocked  every 
great  endeavor  that  has  blessed  the  race.  His  wealth 
has  been  made  and  risked  and  often  lost  In  the  service 
of  the  ordinary  people. 


CHAPTER   XV 

CHARITABLE   TRUSTS 

AGGREGATIONS  of  money  for  purposes  of 
education  and  chanty  are  as  Indispensable 
as  the  accumulations  of  natural  force  in 
vast  kilowatts  of  electricity  or  tens  of  thousands  of 
horse  power  of  steam  for  purposes  of  manufacture 
or  transit.  But  the  general  alarm  and  agitation  sug- 
gests a  fear  of  such  trusts. 

There  always  have  been  minds  that  can  see  noth- 
ing but  the  evils  and  peril  in  unusual  things.  The 
proportions  must  be  kept  down  to  the  present  effi- 
ciency of  management.  Nothing  must  be  done  that 
is  beyond  what  we  know  to  be  man's  present  capac- 
ity. And  we  demonstrate  this  by  proving  how  he 
was  unable  to  do  similar  things  when  he  was  much 
smaller  and  with  infinitely  less  experience  than  he 
now  has.  By  showing  what  men  in  a  crude  age,  with 
few  appliances  and  less  practical  knowledge,  could 
not  do,  we  prove  plainly  that  men  of  a  later  time  in 
conditions  of  favoring  education  and  experience  must 
fail  also. 

If  you  show  that  the  church  of  the  Middle  Ages 
248 


CHARITABLE    TRUSTS 

misused  charitable  funds  and  filled  the  land  with 
worthless  mendicants,  you  demonstrate  that  the  Sage 
Fund,  the  Rockefeller  Fund,  and  the  Carnegie  Fund 
for  investigation  of  conditions  of  living  among  the 
poor,  research  and  scientific  study  and  the  promotion 
of  educational  facilities  respectively  must  be  attended 
with  like  danger  and  result  in  a  general  corruption 
of  the  public  morals. 

There  is  nothing  like  comparisons.  You  can  use 
them  to  prove  anything.  You  have  only  to  leave  out 
an  element  or  two  or  change  the  relation  of  a  fact 
or  two  and  you  can  get  any  result  you  start  for  in  an 
argument. 

There  is  no  force  in  a  precedent  or  an  historic 
fact  unless  the  conditions  are  the  same.  And  there 
were  no  conditions  in  any  of  the  periods  usually  cited 
that  remotely  resemble  the  present  state  of  things 
in  the  forms  of  charity,  the  safeguards  that  are 
thrown  around  the  use  of  trust  funds  to  keep  them 
to  their  true  intent,  or  the  intelligent  and  discrimi- 
nating use  of  moneys  for  the  improvement  of  man- 
kind. It  is  strange  reasoning  that  goes  back  to  such 
crude  conditions  for  a  warning  to  an  age  like  this. 

We  have  been  going  back  to  the  fall  of  Rome 
for  ominous  warnings  in  civil  government  for  cen- 
turies. The  French  Revolution  is  a  standing  proph- 
ecy of  our  bloody  downfall  —  things  that  do  not 
duplicate,  unfortunately  for  the  prophets  but  fortu- 
nately for  the  people.  The  state  of  things  of  the 
past  ages  from  which  we  are  warned  of  the  danger 

249 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

of  charitable  trusts  will  not  be  repeated  until  we  put 
the  times  back  there  and  make  men  as  ignorant  and 
make  their  religion  as  solely  ecclesiastical,  and  our 
charity  as  indiscriminate  a  hand-to-mouth  affair,  and 
the  ministers  of  mercy  and  philanthropy  like  the 
herd  feeding  at  the  common  crib. 

The  sun  shadow  does  not  go  back  on  the  dial. 
What  we  have  learned  by  the  world's  blunders  we 
shall  not  unlearn  or  throw  away.  It  is  simply  a 
question  of  whether  this  age  is  enough  bigger  than 
those  ages  which  have  gone  to  carry  responsibilities 
with  which  they  failed. 

The  fact  that  we  see  their  errors,  that  we  criti- 
cise them,  and  that  we  have  made  laws  to  prevent 
their  repetition  is  sufficient  demonstration.  In  argu- 
ing our  danger  we  show  our  ability  to  avoid  the  dan- 
ger. Using  Paul's  method,  who  on  one  occasion 
said:  "  I  protest  by  your  rejoicing,"  we  say:  "  I  pro- 
test by  your  fears  !  " 

The  trouble  with  men  in  reasoning  concerning  un- 
usual things  is  that  they  have  no  perspective.  They 
can  only  compare  the  great  things  of  their  age  with 
the  lesser  great  things  of  a  smaller  age. 

The  attempts,  therefore,  to  legislate  for  the  fu- 
ture or  to  make  warning  predictions  of  things  not 
seen  are  often  more  foolish  than  wise.  Our  own  at- 
tempt at  reconstruction  after  the  Civil  War  is  a  dis- 
mal instance.  There  probably  is  not  an  intelligent 
citizen  of  our  country  who  does  not  see  now  where 
great  blunders  were  made  and  who  does  not  wonder 

250 


CHARITABLE    TRUSTS 

that  men  of  forty  years  ago  did  not  see  the  future 
more  clearly.  The  only  man  who  did  see  it  was 
killed  by  the  assassin  and  escaped  the  assassination 
for  that  time  of  his  reputation  as  a  statesman. 

No  age  has  legislated  successfully  for  itself  or 
for  the  future  in  all  things.  Every  age  is  repairing 
constantly  the  mistakes  of  the  preceding  ages  which 
have  been  made  by  men  who  assumed  the  wisdom 
of  the  future.  The  Magna  Charta  and  the  Amer- 
ican Constitution  did  not  come  out  of  the  proph- 
ecies and  revelations.  They  are  gigantic  corrections 
of  legislative  blunders  and  executive  abuses.  And 
there  are  many  subsequent  amendments  revealed  as 
time  goes  by. 

As  seers  we  have  made  small  progress.  We 
gather  the  disproportioned  stones  quarried  for  plans 
only  partially  understood  by  our  forefathers  and 
with  them  build  imperfectly  our  own  times. 

It  will  be  proved  in  the  next  generation  that  we 
have  understood  our  problem  no  better  than  our 
fathers  understood  theirs.  We  are  making  a  worse 
showing,  all  things  considered,  in  our  adjustment  of 
the  proportion  of  things  than  has  any  age  preceding 
us.  We  are  showing  our  puerility  in  our  fright  and 
alarmed  confusion  over  trusts  which  we  are  trying  to 
regulate  for  all  time. 

We  have  undertaken  to  secure  the  future  against 
those  things  which  are  too  great  for  us  in  our  own 
age.  We  can  safely  dismiss  our  fears,  for  what  we 
fail  to  do,  wise  men,  following  in  generations  ever  in- 

251 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

creasing  in  the  stature  of  their  minds,  will  do.  If  we 
cannot  see  how  Marshall  Field's  fifty-year-entailed 
fortune  is  to  accumulate  without  swallowing  up  the 
capital  of  the  continent,  we  need  not  worry.  Other 
men  are  coming — men  who  will  see  to  those  things 
with  the  greater  ease  because  of  their  wisdom  and 
ours.  Five  billions  will  not  seem  so  great  a  sum  in 
fifty  years  as  it  does  now,  and  the  values  with  which 
it  is  to  be  compared  will  increase  in  a  half  century 
enormously.  A  nation  that  is  increasing  in  wealth 
ten  millions  a  day  need  not  worry  lest  some  one  or 
some  two  or  three  possess  five  billions.  We  shall 
change  the  proportions  in  the  next  century  faster 
and  more  vastly  than  we  have  in  the  past  five  cen- 
turies. 

And  men  of  great  minds  magnificently  furnished 
from  the  schools  and  trained  in  the  use  of  the  forces 
out  of  which  the  universe  was  built  will  be  in  charge. 
They  will  be  the  common  people.  If  there  is  any- 
thing to  frighten  us,  it  is  that  we  are  to  be  dwarfed 
in  comparison  with  the  men  who  are  to  be  created 
by  trusts  in  education,  in  charity,  and  in  commerce. 
Our  danger  is  that  the  march  of  God's  great  move- 
ments sweep  over  us  and  bury  us  in  oblivion. 

We  are  cave  dwellers  discussing  modern  sky- 
scrapers. We  are  coolies  with  jinrikishas  afraid  of 
the  Twentieth  Century  Limited. 

With  all  of  our  conceit  of  things,  we  shall  be  off 
the  stage  less  than  a  generation  when  other  men  will 
be  undoing  our  wisdom  with  a  greater  wisdom,  and 

252 


CHARITABLE    TRUSTS 

doing   the   things   multiplied   a    hundredfold   which 
we  feel  so  sure  are  to  bring  the  world  to  an  end. 

Our  safest  way  Is  to  plan  immense  things,  as  great 
as  we  can,  and  leave  the  perfection  of  them  to  men 
who  will  piece  out  the  years  which  fail  us. 

The  great  charitable  and  educational  trust  funds 
are  not  large.  They  are  relatively  small.  One  hun- 
dred millions  of  last  year's  gifts  was  a  drop  in  the 
bucket.  It  was  swallowed  by  thirsty  causes  as  the 
dry  earth  drinks  a  summer  shower.  A  billion  dol- 
lars In  fourteen  years  when  distributed  through  our 
vast  country,  Its  hundreds  of  universities,  colleges, 
professional  and  technical  schools,  its  hospitals,  asy- 
lums, and  other  charities,  Is  far  from  an  "  enormous 
total."  It  Is  a  fund  so  small  that  not  a  dollar  of  It 
has  reached  hundreds  of  most  worthy  causes.  And, 
besides.  It  is  not  what  it  appears  to  be  to  some  nervous 
minds  In  Its  vast  aggregation,  for  it  Is  In  hundreds  of 
different  sums.  It  goes  In  no  great  sum  to  any  one 
cause. 

It  will  have  to  reach  many  more  billions  than  are 
at  all  likely  before  the  currents  flowing  out  into  thou- 
sands of  beneficences  become  stagnant  and  subject 
to  misuse  and  perversion. 

We  are  startled  by  the  "  enormous  total  "  sim- 
ply because  we  have  not  seen  the  world  giving  Its 
tenths  to  God's  great  charities.  If  the  Hebrew 
tithe  were  applied  there  would  "  not  be  room  to  con- 
tain It."  We  are  too  far  away  from  that  to  begin  to 
put  on  the  brakes  and  reverse  the  engine. 

253 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

We  have  but  to  look  about  ourselves  and  see  the 
enormous  desert  waiting  to  be  irrigated  education- 
ally, the  thousands  of  towns  without  hospital  or  dis- 
pensary, the  millions  living  in  vice  or  disease-breed- 
ing conditions  calling  for  sanitation,  the  intemperance 
and  licentiousness,  fetid  miasmic  swamps  waiting  mil- 
lions of  money  to  construct  moral  drainage  canals. 

How  strange  it  sounds  in  such  an  age  when  there 
are  such  tremendous  exigencies  in  the  varied  estate 
of  mankind  demanding  money — money  to  furnish 
men,  money  to  change  the  face  of  nature,  money  to 
apply  healthful,  natural,  and  moral  laws,  money  to 
inspire  self-respect  and  courage,  money  to  supply  our 
nation,  appallingly  increasing  in  immigrated  igno- 
rance, with  educated  citizens.  How  passing  strange 
in  such  a  land  and  age  for  an  intelligent  man  to  be- 
come alarmed  at  permanent  gifts  of  five  billions  in 
fourteen  years  to  all  of  these  causes. 

The  danger  is  greater  that  men  may  be  misled 
by  the  sophistries  against  charity  trusts  and  that  the 
healthful  movement  toward  such  endowments  be 
turned  backward. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  demand,  take  any  con- 
siderable university.  It  has  twenty  departments  in 
the  college  proper  and  a  couple  of  hundred  courses 
including  the  different  electives  forced  upon  us  by  the 
clamor  for  practical  education,  besides  more  or  less 
graduate  or  upper  degree  work.  There  is  often  the 
coordinate  group  of  professional  and  technical  col- 
leges and  schools.     It  requires  more  money  to-day  to 

254 


CHARITABLE    TRUSTS 

found  worthily  one  department  of  the  academic  col- 
lege than  it  was  thought  could  be  profitably  used  in 
an  entire  college  less  than  a  century  ago,  and  the  in- 
stitution is  but  moderately  endowed  with  $10,000,- 
000.  That  provides  but  a  modest  salary  for  men 
of  great  ability  and  leaves  nothing  for  pensions  to 
men  who  have  been  denied  the  privilege  and  hope 
of  securing  their  homes  against  the  rainy  day. 

Institutions  such  as  Harvard  was  fifty  years  ago 
would  not  be  tolerated  to-day.  The  smallest  college 
must  aspire  to  the  best  books,  the  best  apparatus,  the 
best  laboratories,  and  the  best  teachers.  The  de- 
mand has  been  created  by  the  discovery  of  new  worlds 
of  research  and  activity — boundless  possibilities  in 
the  realm  of  life  and  force. 

Take  surgery  and  medicine  as  another  illustra- 
tion. Their  schools  surpass  the  dreams-  of  past  gen- 
erations.    They  are  young  yet. 

Charity  is  no  longer  simply  feeding  the  hungry 
and  clothing  the  naked.  It  searches  for  causes  and 
removes  them.  It  furnishes  self-reliance  and  self- 
support.  It  builds  model  houses  and  teaches  cooking 
and  garment-making  in  the  homes,  and  shows  the 
workingman  the  things  that  can  be  done  with  the 
money  that  makes  the  saloonkeeper's  family  comfort- 
able, leaving  his  own  family  miserable  and  degraded. 
It  rescues  the  children  from  ignorance  and  crime  and 
regenerates  habits  while  feeding  the  hungry.  And 
can  anyone  see  through  this  problem  and  tell  the 
time  when  it  will  not  be  an  expensive  study?     "  The 

2SS 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

poor  ye  have  with  you  always."  And  the  sick  will 
be  here  to  the  end  of  time.  There  is  no  danger  that 
time  will  last  long  enough  to  "  extinguish  these  spe- 
cific objects."  Men  always  will  have  to  be  taught 
in  schools.  Their  number  has  increased  a  hundred- 
fold within  a  comparatively  short  time.  The  increase 
in  the  higher  forms  will  be  a  thousandfold  before 
the  charitable  trusts  have  become  a  shadow  of  a  men- 
ace. Sickness  and  poverty  will  not  become  "  extin- 
guished objects."  Human  nature  has  a  long  run  of 
those  appetites  and  passions  which  create  crime,  and 
crime  will  not  be  an  extinguished  object  until  it 
has  extinguished  the  trust  funds  that  are  applied  for 
its  correction. 

The  general  application  will  save  us  from  the  two 
specific  results  by  which  such  funds  shall  exhaust 
their  usefulness  and  lie  idle,  tempting  the  cupidity  of 
men.  And  the  fact  that  these  funds  are  to  be  vested 
in  separate  institutions  of  a  healthful  emulation  and 
rivalry  will  prove  a  safeguard. 

If  it  were  possible  for  all  great  funds  to  be 
merged  into  one  and  partiality  to  be  used  in  applying 
it,  the  danger  of  oppression  and  unjust  discrimina- 
tion would  be  serious. 

There  is  something  of  this  possibility  in  the  Car- 
negie Pension  Fund  for  college  workers.  If  con- 
ditions are  made  impossible  to  some  of  the  colleges, 
there  will  be  imposed  upon  them  a  burden,  because 
discontent  will  be  created  in  the  faculties  and  men  will 
be  attracted  to  colleges  favored  by  the  administra- 

256 


CHARITABLE    TRUSTS 

tion  of  this  fund.  But  the  remedy  will  be  not  in 
overthrowing  the  fund  but  in  creating  more  funds  of 
the  kind,  so  that  no  college  shall  be  discriminated 
against. 

The  best  answer  to  the  danger  of  which  we  are 
warned  is  in  the  working  of  certain  church  and  chari- 
table trusts  of  sufficient  age  to  give  certain  testimony. 
The  Trinity  endowments  and  the  Reformed  Collegi- 
ate also  extend  into  many  millions.  The  result  is 
seen  in  the  strongest  possible  propaganda  in  New 
York  City. 

The  whole  denomination  is  quickened.  Churches 
have  seized  the  finest  locations.  Hospitals  have  an- 
ticipated the  trend  of  population  and  education  has 
received  reenforcement  that  the  tardy  gifts  of  the  con- 
stituency were  dangerously  delaying.  The  market 
has  not  suffered  a  straw  by  investments, withheld  or 
made. 

A  similar  illustration  may  be  found  in  the  church 
extension  trusts  of  the  great  churches.  No  harm  has 
come  to  any  interest,  but  great  aggressiveness  has 
vindicated  the  wisdom  of  these  mighty  loan  funds. 
There  is  a  vast  difference  between  the  things  that 
might  be  and  the  things  that  are  likely  to  be,  between 
possibilities  and  probabilities.  The  things  that  are 
not  probable  need  not  worry  us. 

The  argument  drawn  from  the  imperhnn  in  im- 
perio  it  seems  to  me  does  not  hold.  If  great  chari- 
table trusts  were  for  the  purpose  of  creating  a  class 
with  enormous  holdings,  or  if  educational  foundations 

257 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

were  in  common  and  had  for  their  possibility  the  es- 
tablishing of  an  educated  class  with  an  immense  total 
of  millions,  perhaps  billions,  as  a  political  lever,  there 
might  be  some  force  in  the  reference  to  a  "  secular 
nobility  of  feudal  lords,"  etc. 

But,  as  we  have  shown,  we  are  not  threatened  by 
one  fund  in  even  any  one  cause,  and  there  are  many 
funds  making  up  the  aggregate  in  persons  stimulated 
by  a  healthy  emulation. 

The  greatest  conservator  is  in  the  fact  that  these 
funds  are  used  not  to  increase  the  power  and  influence 
of  their  trustees  but  to  improve  the  conditions  of  the 
State  by  removing  those  distinctive  elements  of  pov- 
erty, ignorance,  and  vice  which  always  are  a  menace. 
So  that  instead  of  being  of  dangerous  tendency,  they 
are  working  continually  to  secure  more  safely  the 
foundations  of  the  State.  And  the  more  such  money 
is  expended  the  better  it  is  for  every  citizen. 

We  are  a  self-governing  nation  and  therefore  the 
education  of  every  voter  is  of  vast  Importance,  for 
every  voter  Is  a  ruler.  Educational  trust  funds  or 
endowments,  therefore,  are  moneys  held  by  trustees 
for  the  direct  purposes  of  the  State.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  other  charities,  and  in  nothing  more  than 
in  the  Intelligent  study  of  "  living  conditions  "  con- 
templated by  the  Sage  Fund  as  set  forth  by  the  far- 
sighted  scheme  of  Mr.  Robert  W.  De  Forest. 

The  charitable  trust  is  the  very  opposite  of  a  men- 
ace. If  It  were  to  build  up  a  sect — any  sect — It  would 
be  different,  for  It  is  a  serious  question  whether  any 

258 


CHARITABLE    TRUSTS 

sect  could  withstand  unlimited  endowment — or  of 
a  billion  or  any  great  sum  in  excess  of  its  practical 
religious  wants.  A  sect  could  change  to  the  Ethio- 
pian's skin  or  take  on  the  leopard's  spots.  But  it  is 
not  so  in  the  use  of  immense  sums  to  change  condi- 
tions which  threaten  the  very  life  of  the  nation. 

The  illustrations  given  frequently  have  reference 
more  to  certain  forms.  Sometimes  these  obstruct  the 
end  proposed,  but  they  do  not  touch  the  integrity  of 
such  trusts  in  charity  as  these  under  discussion. 

It  is  a  healthful  sign  that  the  donors  of  these  im- 
mense sums  place  little  emphasis  upon  the  mere 
"  how  "  of  doing  things.  Certain  conditions  obtain 
which  long  have  been  discussed  by  sociologists  and 
economists.  They  are  well-recognized  perils  if  not 
corrected.  They  are  more  than  the  misery  of  to-day's 
victims  of  poverty  and  vice.  They  are  of  the  nerve  and 
sinew  of  the  nation.  Men  of  gigantic  wealth,  appre- 
ciating their  obligation  according  to  the  measure  of 
their  wealth,  with  a  true  and  noble  patriotism  give 
their  millions  to  serve  their  country  at  such  points  as 
seem  to  them  most  important  and  practicable.  They 
do  not  expect  anything  in  return.  They  learned  long 
ago  that  their  present  reward  would  be  personal  abuse 
and  distrust  of  their  motives.  This  makes  their 
patriotism  the  greater. 

The  trustees  of  their  funds  In  trust  for  the  causes 
named  In  them  are  citizens  of  varying  estates,  with 
scarcely  the  possibility  of  an  unworthy  combination 
for  selfish  purposes  in  the  use  of  these  great  funds. 

259 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

The  brevity  of  human  life  makes  frequent  succession 
a  necessity. 

Were  it  possible  for  men  to  misuse  trusts  so  con- 
stantly active  and  so  under  the  eye  of  jealous  benefi- 
ciaries, such  betrayal  of  trust  is  self-corrective  by  cer- 
tain exposure. 

If  ever  trust  funds  outlived  their  purpose  and 
their  specific  objects  no  longer  called  for  their  divi- 
dends, it  is  entirely  competent  for  the  State  to 
give  them  a  direction  by  which  they  would  go  on 
serving  the  State  and  thus  fulfilling  the  prime  pur- 
pose of  their  donors.  But  that  time  is  so  remote 
in  the  millennium  that  it  is  not  a  matter  of  practical 
consideration. 

The  last  element  of  danger  seems  to  be  the 
least.  It  is  true  that  large  funds  could  be  used 
"  as  a  determining  influence  in  financial  opera- 
tions." But  this  could  hardly  be  true  when  there 
are  many  of  these  great  funds  with  a  common 
interest  in  a  stable  financial  condition.  They  would 
operate,  if  at  all,  to  hold  a  safe  equilibrium  in 
the  commercial  world.  They  would  not  be  in  the 
hand  of  the  speculator.  And  it  is  not  true  that  the 
great  secular  interests  "  wield  their  power  in  a  way 
to  resist  any  extension  even  the  most  reasonable  of 
public  control  over  corporate  or  other  privileged  ac- 
tivity." The  great  corporations  have  insisted  for 
years  upon  a  general  law  and  federal  supervision  cre- 
ated by  statesmen  and  not  by  demagogues  or  politi- 
cal novices. 

260 


CHARITABLE    TRUSTS 

The  fear  that  has  been  expressed  that  the  trustees 
of  these  great  funds  might  possibly  be  "  fine  old  gen- 
tlemen selected  for  their  probity,  but  overtrustful  and 
not  disposed  to  take  too  active  an  interest  in  the  con- 
cerns which  they  are  supposed  to  watch,"  suggests 
an  abnormal  sensitiveness  to  danger  which  goes  far 
to  discredit  the  contention. 

One  of  the  most  assuring  features  of  these  great 
trust  funds  for  purposes  of  education  and  charity  is 
the  selection  of  the  men  for  trustees  to  whom  they 
have  been  committed.  Men  like  Dr.  Pritchett,  of 
the  Carnegie  Fund,  the  great  president  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Institute  of  Technology,  and  Dr.  Butt- 
rick,  of  the  Rockefeller  Fund,  give  ample  assurance 
that  their  trusts  will  not  fall  victims  to  Wall  Street 
or  to  any  other  evil  money  genius. 

It  is  an  unspeakable  joy  to  educators  and  philan- 
thropists that  the  millions  are  being  made  an  offering 
to  humanity. 

Since  men  have  differed  from  the  foundations  of 
the  earth  and  always  will  differ  in  the  faculty  of  ac- 
quisitiveness, and  since  there  will  be  a  perpetual  dif- 
ference in  opportunity,  health,  and  other  circum- 
stances, the  great  trust  funds  that  promote  conditions 
and  that  do  not  foster  mendicancy  are  the  wisest 
promise  for  equalizing  the  most  essential  circum- 
stances of  human  life. 

The  demand  for  such  sources  of  helpful  provi- 
sions is  so  enormous  and  increasingly  so  in  these  times 
that  they  cannot  be  trusted  to  the  mutations  of 
18  261 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

business  prosperity  and  the  incidents  of  impulsive 
giving. 

One  need  only  to  lift  up  his  eyes  to  fields  whiter 
and  wider  than  those  which  Christ  showed  His  dis- 
ciples to  appreciate  the  extent  to  which  fortunes  may 
be  devoted  to  a  thousand  kinds  of  philanthropy,  and 
how  little  is  the  danger  that  such  treasuries  will  be- 
come the  envy  or  the  prey  of  mercenary  minds.  They 
will  be  ever  empty  If  always  filled.  The  outlet  will 
be  many  fold  larger  than  the  inlet. 

We  are  touching  only  the  edge  of  the  world. 
There  are  several  mighty  peoples  that  have  not  yet 
passed  out  of  their  crudest  conditions;  a  thousand 
years  will  see  some  of  them  in  the  pupa  state. 

Our  peculiar  relation  to  the  world,  placed  in  its 
very  center,  endowed  with  the  equivalent  of  its  com- 
bined wealth,  awakened  to  the  magnitude  of  universe 
forces,  summoning  to  our  invention  and  practical  sci- 
ence the  genius  of  all  ages,  puts  upon  us  the  respon- 
sibility and  the  privilege  of  leading  the  thought  and 
ethical  ideals  of  all  men  who  are  lower  than  our- 
selves upward  to  man's  final  summit.  Our  money 
will  some  day  come  to  have  its  chief  value,  as  it  has 
to  some  minds  now,  in  the  leverage  it  will  put  un- 
der the  conditions  of  mankind. 

As  it  is  accumulated  in  great  trust  funds,  intel- 
ligence and  sympathy  will  increase  also  and  its  ad- 
ministration will  become  increasingly  wise. 

The  mistakes  of  the  past  will  be  avoided  not  by 
leaving  the  world  to  the  hopeless  gropings  of  a  blind 

262 


CHARITABLE    TRUSTS 

evolution,  to  return  ever  helpless  upon  itself  like  one 
lost  in  a  forest,  but  by  a  clear  discernment  of  the  de- 
mands of  sane  conditions  out  of  which  may  be  cre- 
ated self-confidence,  self-reliance,  self-support,  with 
self-respect. 

And  the  activities  of  an  intensified  civilization 
will  prevent  the  most  generous,  the  very  largest  bene- 
factions of  increasing  wealth  from  stagnating  in 
miasmic  pools.  They  will  be  sent  forth  daily  in  broad 
rivers  and  streams  to  refresh  and  make  fruitful  the 
whole  earth. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

TAINTED   MONEY 

ANEW  Pharisaism  has  come  among  us.  Phar- 
isaism is  a  persistent  moral  disease.  It  so 
takes  on  the  shape  of  righteous  protest 
against  sin;  it  is  such  a  garment  of  hght  that  it  usu- 
ally gets  a  well-intrenched  position  before  its  true 
character  is  discovered.  It  condemns  what  is  and 
boasts  superior  things.  Its  most  successful  modern 
pretensions  are  along  the  paths  of  the  poor,  where 
it  firmly  lays  claim  to  superior  sympathy  with 
the  weak,  who  are  oppressed  by  the  strong  and  the 
rich. 

Its  shibboleth,  which  for  the  time  seems  effective 
and  gives  it  a  cordial  welcome,  is  "  Tainted  Money." 
It  is  an  original  invention.  It  is  a  home-made  and 
a  ready-made  commodity.  It  is  made  up  out  of  an 
assumption  pure  and  simple.  Like  all  pharisaism 
It  is  an  assault  upon  the  character  of  other  men's 
works  and  it  is  indiscriminate  and  sweeping.  It  has 
undertaken  to  say  what  has  not  been  in  the  power  of 
courts  to  say.  It  is  a  discerner  of  spirits.  Where  it 
cannot  separate  the  good  and  the  bad  in  individual 

264 


TAINTED    MONEY 

acts  It  does  the  easier  thing  of  putting  the  whole  un- 
der the  broad  label  of  its  taint  accusation. 

Because  men  are  in  business  which  certain  little 
novelists  and  retaliating  competitors  condemn  as  dis- 
honest, because  their  particular  form  of  business  is 
of  unusual  proportions  and  supplants,  as  the  railroad 
did  the  stage  coach,  smaller  proportions  which  make 
a  violent  protest,  the  new  pharlsaism  comes  in  to 
bring  the  offenders  to  judgment  by  condemning  the 
proceeds  of  the  business  as  unclean  and  tainted  and 
therefore  not  to  be  used  by  good  people  for  good 
causes. 

But  the  new  pharlsee  is  considerate.  He  does 
not  carry  his  logic  to  the  condemning  of  all  busmess 
that  Is  not  certified  and  thereby  shutting  us  out  of  the 
use  of  everything  because  It  may  have  In  It  some  dis- 
honest weight  or  measure,  but  only  such  as  has  grown 
big  enough  to  become  the  subject  of  the  frenzied 
magazine  story,  great  enough  to  be  easily  seen  be- 
cause incorporated  and  large  In  dividends. 

It  would  involve  too  much  detail  to  examine  every 
dollar  and  It  is  sufficient  for  the  purpose  of  the  new 
pharlsaism  to  condemn  the  big  dollar.  But  such 
trifling  Inconsistency  never  has  embarrassed  the  pharl- 
see in  the  remotest  or  most  recent  time. 

This  latest  kind  is  sure  of  a  following,  for  If  there 
is  anything  that  appeals  to  men  it  is  money.  It  is  a 
subject  of  constant  discussion  whether  we  have  it  or 
do  not  have  It. 

The  dollar  has  given  the  world  a  great  deal  of 
265 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

trouble,  mostly  for  the  need  of  it  but  sometimes  for 
the  care  of  it  and  often  in  the  use  of  it.  It  has 
been  hard  for  the  average  man  to  get  and  to  keep  and 
to  use  for  a  value  received. 

It  has  its  effect  upon  human  character,  making 
some  thieves  and  murderers  and  others  miserly  and 
merciless.  Some  it  has  made  vain  and  foolish  and 
some  it  has  debauched  by  excess  of  riches. 

The  Bible  says  that  the  love  of  it  is  the  root  of 
all  evil.  Many,  however,  have  put  It  into  such  a 
relation  to  the  nobler  faculties  and  have  used  It  with 
such  a  lofty  purpose  that  it  has  given  them  immense 
power  for  good.  The  dollar  has  helped  them  to  be 
greater  and  better  men.  And  I  imagine  that  we  all 
of  us  have  so  much  confidence  In  ourselves  that  we 
think  we  could  safely  use  It.  I  never  have  heard  of 
any  man  who,  railing  at  riches,  declined  them,  so 
great  Is  the  confidence  of  men  that  they  can  right- 
eously use  them. 

But  now  comes  this  new  doctrine  with  regard  to 
the  dollar.  It  must  furnish  Its  pedigree.  It  must 
give  references  before  one  can  use  It  morally  in  any 
great  benevolences.  These  doctrinaires  permit  it  to 
be  used  for  paying  taxes  and  buying  and  selling  and 
purchasing  goods  and  the  wages  of  cooks  and  coach- 
men. They  permit  it  to  be  sent  home  In  the  pocket 
of  the  laboring  man  to  the  sweet  and  innocent  wife 
and  children  and  they  will  allow  a  gambler  or  saloon- 
keeper to  buy  his  dinner  with  the  dollar  fresh  from 
the  hand  of  the  latest  victim  of  his  nefarious  craft 

266 


TAINTED    MONEY 

and  the  merchant  to  take  it  in  trade  without  a  ques- 
tion. And  I  have  not  heard  that  the  contribution 
boxes  in  the  churches  are  labeled:  "  From  the  good 
only."  No  watch  is  kept  lest  a  dishonestly  obtained 
bill  is  put  on  the  plate  or  that  it  be  taken  out  when  the 
money  is  used  for  the  church  account. 

But  the  dollar  must  account  for  itself  if  it  comes 
from  certain  men  whose  motives  and  business  trans- 
actions have  been  weighed  by  the  censors  of  human 
transactions,  the  judges  guarded  against  in  the  New 
Testament,  should  it  propose  to  go  into  the  treasury 
of  a  university  or  a  missionary  society.  Unless  it 
can  prove  that  it  was  honestly  made,  it  must  not  pay 
college  coal  bills  or  give  instruction  to  the  heathen  or 
pay  a  minister's  salary  or  do  any  good  whatever.  It 
is  better  not  to  pay  for  such  things  until  the  dollar 
brings  along  its  certificate  of  good  character. 

There  are  some  embarrassing  things  about  the 
tainted  dollar  which  our  friends,  the  pharisees,  have 
not  revealed.  For  instance,  by  what  process  does  the 
taint  wear  off  this  dollar  and  how  long  is  it  corrupted 
and  can  it  ever  get  pure? 

If  a  millionaire  who  is  not  certificated  by  the 
censors  should  pay  $10,000  to  my  neighbor,  can  this 
neighbor  take  the  money  and  give  $1,000  of  it  to 
me  for  the  church?  Was  the  taint  worn  off  by 
going  through  an  honest  man's  hands  or  the  hands 
of  several  honest  men?  If  so,  would  it  not  be  taken 
off  by  going  directly  to  an  honest  purpose?  I  con- 
cede just  for  the  purpose  of  the  question  what  I  do 

267 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

not  believe,  that  It  was  dishonest  money  when  it 
started  out.  Can  an  institution  or  cause  of  benevo- 
lence take  corporation  dividends  direct?  The  stock 
is  owned  by  Christian  men  and  women  who  stand  as 
well  in  their  community  as  the  pharisees  in  theirs. 
If  not,  can  the  proceeds  of  such  dividends  be  used 
for  these  good  purposes  after  they  have  been  trans- 
muted through  the  banks  and  the  hands  of  innocent 
business  men  or  through  the  firms  of  men  who  cheated 
on  a  scale  too  small  to  be  detected? 

Somewhere  between  the  octopus  and  the  altar  the 
dollar  must  be  regenerated  or  it  is  a  lost  dollar. 
Ought  it  to  be  buried  or  burned  or  thrown  into  the 
sea? 

But  if  any  man  can  redeem  it,  what  man  and  what 
happens  to  him — is  he  the  vicarious  sacrifice  to  a  dol- 
lar? And  how  many  men  does  it  take  and  what  are 
the  processes  that  will  satisfy  the  man  who  flees  such 
horrible  contamination? 

But  some  of  us  are  skeptical  about  the  taint. 
And  it  never  has  been  explained  how  it  can  be.  The 
dollar  has  no  personality.  It  can  take  on  no  quality 
but  the  material.  It  can  have  microbes  on  it  and 
some  of  the  bills  we  have  to  handle  appear  to  have 
come  from  unwashed  hands  and  some  of  them  bear 
contagious  disease  germs  and  they  ought  to  be  boiled 
and  soaked  in  lye.  But  where  is  the  moral  taint?  It 
is  in  the  use  of  it,  perhaps.  But  the  Master  told  us 
that  it  was  not  the  material  things  that  contaminated 
men,  not  even  what  one  ate  and  drank.     And  cer- 

268 


TAINTED    MONEY 

tainly  you  could  not  point  to  a  building  on  a  uni- 
versity campus  or  to  a  church  and  say  "  That  was 
built  with  tainted  money "  without  reversing  the 
teachings  of  Jesus  Christ.  Who  knows  what  dollars 
are  In  any  building?  Who  knows  what  hypocrites 
may  be  behind  any  accredited  offering  to  the  Lord? 
Who  ever  heard  a  word  from  our  Master  making 
such  discrimination?  Paul  even  permitted  meat  of- 
fered to  Idols  to  be  eaten  In  the  fear  of  God. 

But  a  man  might  offer  you  money  as  a  price  of 
your  silence  against  sin !  Would  you  take  money 
from  a  thief?  If  a  man  cannot  see  the  difference  be- 
tween taking  money  from  a  burglar  and  from  a  busi- 
ness man  whose  business  may  be  condemned  by  some 
who  are  prejudiced  against  it,  his  ethical  sense  Is  too 
obtuse  for  practical  use.  If  a  saloonkeeper  were  to 
offer  me  money,  one  thousand  or  one  hundred  thou- 
sand, to  purchase  my  silence  and  to  restrain  my  voice 
against  his  accursed  business,  I  ought  to  say,  *'  Your 
money  perish  with  you  !  "  But  that  is  not  because  the 
use  of  that  money  for  a  lawful  purpose  would  be 
tainted.  What  is  the  legal  right  of  the  man  to  give 
the  money?  What  is  the  purpose  of  the  donor  and 
my  purpose  In  its  use?  Does  the  State  recognize  the 
right  of  a  business  man  to  have  the  proceeds  of  his 
business  and  to  give  It  away?  Who  is  going  to  judge 
him?  Hate,  prejudice,  clamor?  Who  is  to  decide 
his  right  to  what  he  has — the  demagogue  and  the 
pharisee?  Do  you  say  that  I  must  find  out?  Then 
I  must  stop  when   a  man  hands  me  his  check  and 

269 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

say,  my  friend,  we  greatly  need  the  money  to  edu- 
cate young  men  and  young  women,  but  before  I  can 
take  it  you  must  tell  me  where  you  got  it  and  how 
the  man  made  it  that  you  got  it  of  and  what  the 
man  before  him  did  to  secure  it,  because  we  learned 
from  the  ancient  pharisees  to  be  very  careful  about 
these  things,  and  the  government  has  not  put  the  cor- 
poration mark  on  the  dollars,  you  know ! 

For  the  doctrine  must  be  of  general  application. 
It  will  not  do  to  restrict  it  to  some  one  person  against 
whom  prejudices  have  been  excited  and  whose  busi- 
ness it  has  become  popular  to  condemn.  We  must 
use  no  money  that  was  made  dishonestly  or  by  ques- 
tionable methods  by  anybody.  And  it  will  not  do  to 
say  that  we  are  not  accountable  if  we  do  not  know  be- 
cause it  is  our  duty  diligently  to  search  for  this  taint 
and  leave  no  careless  possibility  of  such  dollars  reach- 
ing the  Lord's  treasury. 

Is  this  the  teaching  of  the  greatest  teacher  and 
example  the  world  ever  has  seen?  We  do  not  find 
a  solitary  example  of  it  in  Christ's  teachings.  There 
was  the  broad  injunction  to  render  to  Caesar  the 
things  of  Caesar  and  to  God  the  things  of  God,  but 
the  man  and  not  his  neighbor  was  to  determine  that. 
Our  Master  went  so  far  as  to  tell  us  that  we  in  our 
personal  and  unofficial  capacity  were  not  to  try  to 
pull  the  tares  out  of  the  wheat.  The  conditions  of 
the  world  were  such  that  the  censorious,  ethical,  hair- 
splitting processes  would  destroy  both  wheat  and 
tares. 

270 


TAINTED    MONEY 

Certainly  no  one  need  fail  to  discriminate  be- 
tween a  burglar's  stolen  money  and  what  has  lately 
come  to  be  known  as  tainted  money.  Every  boy 
knows  that  one  cannot  take  stolen  goods  without 
being  a  partaker  with  the  thief.  But  the  proceeds 
of  recognized  business  are  quite  a  different  thing.  It 
is  not  permitted  to  any  class  of  men  from  ex  parte 
accusations  and  untried  indictments  to  impose  their 
private  judgment  upon  men  who  differ  from  them  as 
to  the  legitimacy  of  that  form  of  trade.  And  even 
when  the  government  sits  in  judgment  by  a  final  court 
it  says  what  belongs  to  the  State  or  to  a  complainant, 
and  also  what  are  the  only  practicable  forms  of 
restitution  and  whether  the  business  shall  go  on  or 
not.  Beyond  this,  to  his  own  Master  the  man  stands 
or  falls. 

A  clamor  is  raised  against  great  forms  of  busi- 
ness, greater  than  the  men  who  assail  them,  and  the 
assault  in  most  such  cases  is  carried  to  the  Court  of 
Heaven  under  a  charge  of  moral  taint;  no  final  ver- 
dict has  been  rendered;  thousands  of  honest  and 
thoughtful  men  not  accepting  the  charge.  The  furor 
seems  to  many  like  the  mint  and  anise  of  the  pharisee, 
and  all  who  differ  from  these  self-constituted  judges 
of  motives  and  methods  which  they  have  weighed  in 
the  balances  of  their  excited  prejudices  are  branded 
as  without  keen  ethical  sense  or  as  purchased  by  per- 
sonal interest. 

You  remember  that  Jesus  Christ  met  one  day  a 
rich  man,  and  his  preaching  was  so  effective  that  the 

271 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

man  said  that  he  would  give  half  his  goods  to  the 
poor  and  he  would  restore  fourfold  of  what  he  had 
taken  unjustly.  Did  the  Lord  say:  "Hold,  your 
money  is  tainted.  You  cannot  give  It  away,  nobody 
can  take  it.  It  was  not  stolen,  but  it  was  not  made 
honestly  and  no  one  should  touch  it.  You  must  keep 
it  unless  you  can  put  it  all  back  whence  you  got  it,  all 
that  you  got  honestly  and  dishonestly,  for  that  mat- 
ter, for  you  stand  for  dishonest  business  methods  and 
you  cannot  give  anything  to  charity.  Your  money  is 
tainted  money.  And  you  must  keep  it  or  destroy  it  so 
that  it  will  not  taint  any  other  person." 

Strange  that  the  Master  did  not  tell  us  that  a 
man  who  took  Zaccheus's  money  for  charity  would 
be  a  "  fence  "  or  particeps  with  a  thief.  Dr.  Gladden 
tells  us  that  Mr.  Rockefeller's  $32,000,000  for  edu- 
cation is  restitution.  Well,  if  that  is  so  we  can  take 
it  on  the  authority  of  Christ,  who  sanctioned  Zac- 
cheus's purpose. 

There  are  minds  of  sufficient  ethical  discernment 
to  see  the  difference  between  the  use  of  the  pieces  of 
silver  that  Judas  took  to  the  pharisees  and  that  of  the 
money  that  Zaccheus  proposed  to  give  to  the  poor. 
And  It  is  not  proved  by  any  means  that  a  modern 
millionaire  is  even  a  Zaccheus  because  he  happens  to 
make  his  money  in  a  corporation  and  is  the  victim 
of  "  ranting  against  capitalists." 

The  poor  multimillionaire  who  has  not  carried  his 
business  to  the  court  of  the  pharisees  and  received 
their  certificate  of  good  character  is  In  an  embarrass- 

272 


TAINTED    MONEY 

ing  situation.  There  does  not  seem  to  be  anything 
that  he  can  do  but  to  keep  his  money  until  he  dies 
and  have  it  buried  with  him.  Ah  me,  the  pharisees ! 
How  they  do  persist  from  age  to  age  in  judging  all 
men !  I  rather  take  my  chances  with  Zaccheus  than 
with  the  pharisees ! 

I  believe  that  no  more  specious  form  of  phari- 
saism  has  appeared  since  the  days  when  the  pharisees 
were  rebuked  by  Christ  on  the  earth  than  this  present 
attempt  to  convey  moral  taint  to  material  things  or 
to  the  use  of  material  things  without  regard  to  the 
purpose  and  character  of  their  uses. 

There  is  connected  with  it  a  depraving  process 
to  him  who  does  such  judging,  and  a  great  injustice 
often  to  the  accused.  Nothing  did  Christ  more 
severely  condemn  than  the  practice  of  judging  the 
motives  and  acts  of  our  neighbors.  Nothing  so 
quickly  dries  up  the  fountains  of  magnanimity  and 
that  charity  which  the  apostle  tells  us  is  the  greatest 
of  all  virtues.  Nothing  turns  a  man  so  quickly  into 
a  snarling  cynic.  Nothing  indicates  such  narrowness 
and  shallowness  of  both  thought  and  feeling. 

And  by  what  divine  prescience  do  such  judges  of 
their  fellow-men  single  out  men  and  declare  their 
guilt,  even  before  the  courts  have  rendered  their  final 
decision?  And  by  what  power  of  discrimination  do 
such  men  penetrate  the  quality  of  acts  and  tell  us  what 
is  against  human  law  is  also  against  divine  law,  and 
by  what  omniscient  eye  do  they  catalogue  the  deeds 
of  men  and  declare  to  us  what  dollars  are  tainted  and 

273 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

what  are  Infallible  when  made  by  the  same  men? 
The  recklessness  and  wholesale  sweeping  condemna- 
tion of  certain  men  by  name  without  any  discrimina- 
tion as  to  acts,  whether  some  are  right  and  some 
wrong,  shows  the  reckless  and  unchristian  malevo- 
lence to  which  such  men  have  become  victims  by  men 
who  are  setting  up  their  spiteful  prejudice  as  a 
judgment  seat  in  the  House  of  God. 

Christ  had  the  moral  ancestors  of  such  men  be- 
fore Him  one  day  on  a  very  much  worse  case  than 
dishonest  dollars,  and  He  said  to  the  accusers,  "  The 
one  among  you  who  Is  without  sin  begin  to  throw 
stones  at  her."  And  they  threw  no  stones,  but  hurried 
away  in  confusion. 

Men  are,  without  doubt,  making  money  dishon- 
estly, though  not  always  those  accused.  If  they  are, 
the  law  should  restrain  them  and  will.  But  there  Is 
something  as  bad  as  dishonest  money-getters — and 
that  is  a  pharisalcal  censorlousness.  It  Is  a  blight 
of  religion,  a  mildew  that  dwarfs  every  noble  in- 
stinct, a  poison  that  kills  every  sweet  charity. 

How  shall  we  account  for  the  wide-spreading 
hatred  of  wealth  and  the  Insidious  attacks  that  are 
being  made  upon  the  dollar  whenever  it  is  seen  In 
the  hands  of  successful  men  in  any  considerable 
amount,  called  "  swollen  fortunes  " — this  levellng- 
down  process,  a  doctrine  that  is  rampant  from  the 
White  House  to  the  socialists'  camp  ? 

The  peril  of  it  is  in  the  fact  that  It  Is  all  In  the 
name  and  professed  to  be  for  the  poor  and  the  op- 

274 


TAINTED    MONEY 

pressed.  As  though  the  destruction  of  riches  would 
help  the  poor  and  relieve  the  condition  of  the  desti- 
tute. 

The  dollars  are  wicked  when  accumulated  in 
millions.  They  are  clean  if  the  amount  is  small 
enough !  A  politician  much  in  evidence  says  that 
when  they  are  over  fifty  per  cent  of  any  form  of 
business,  they  are  bad  dollars  and  you  must  not  touch 
them !  And  they  become  very  wicked  when  char- 
tered as  a  corporation  or  when  they  do  so  much  busi- 
ness at  a  cheap  rate  that  men  with  less  capital  and 
facilities  cannot  compete  with  them  because  you  will 
not  pay  the  price  for  the  goods.  A  strange  fever  has 
come  over  the  land  to  destroy,  to  disorganize,  and 
scatter  wealth  in  these  forms,  and  the  people  are 
blindly  following  their  blind  leaders. 

We  have  suffered  something  from  railway  trains 
off  their  schedule  and  from  watered  stocks  and  from 
high  prices  of  meats  and  from  competition  of  great 
organized  trade  which  has  driven  some  men  out  of 
business.  This  discontent  with  new  adjustments  and 
change  into  new  times  is  the  demagogue's  oppor- 
tunity. 

And  the  country  is  in  this  startling  condition  to- 
day, without  a  foremost  candidate  for  the  presidency 
of  either  party  who  is  not  discrediting  business  and 
assailing  especially  these  corporate  forms  which  have 
made  the  commercial  age  and  placed  education  and 
philanthropy  upon  a  wider  and  nobler  basis. 

The  peril  is  appalling,  because  under  such  leader- 
275 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

ship  the  sturdy  people  of  our  land  are  joined  prac- 
tically as  never  before  to  that  socialistic  and  an- 
archistic element  which  is  relentlessly  at  war  with 
all  forms  of  government  and  bitterly  hostile  to  the 
accumulation  of  wealth.  We  are  to-day  in  the  camp 
of  socialism  and  we  do  not  know  it.  But  the  so- 
cialists know  It  and  boast  It.  And  we  shall  find  that 
we  went  into  the  camp  of  socialism  very  much  more 
easily  than  we  shall  go  out  of  It. 

A  class  hatred  has  been  created  never  before 
known  in  this  country.  Our  industrial  pursuits  and 
wealth-producing  enterprises  to  which  are  belted  the 
shaftings  and  pulleys  of  civilization  are  being  as- 
sailed. 

President  Woodrow  Wilson  is  reported  to  have 
said  that  we  have  become  sordid  In  our  passion  of 
wealth-getting.  He  probably  said  nothing  of  the 
kind,  for  he  Is  too  Intelligent  to  make  such  an  utter- 
ance, but  It  is  a  current  phrase,  nevertheless.  The 
getting  of  wealth  has  not  required  the  sordid  passion. 
It  Is  an  age  in  which  men  have  discovered  the  ways 
of  reaching  the  resources  of  the  earth  and  of  using 
the  forces  of  nature,  and  the  wealth  of  the  age  has 
poured  out  of  discoveries  that  are  the  contributions  of 
science  and  the  useful  arts.  Its  possession  has  sur- 
prised thousands  of  poor  boys  into  wealth  and  is 
changing  the  poor  into  the  rich  in  every  place  and 
year  In  our  land. 

Never  have  there  been  such  times  into  which  men 
could  turn  trifles  into  fortunes.     Up  In  Maine  a  few 

276 


TAINTED    MONEY 

ye  irs  ago  a  man  conceived  the  idea  of  cutting  an  eye- 
let into  the  corner  of  a  piece  of  cardboard  and  tying 
a  string  into  it  and  it  made  him  a  millionaire.  A 
professor  in  Boston  University  caught  the  idea  of 
making  articulate  sound  by  a  curious  diaphragm  and 
a  current  of  electricity  and  it  made  him  famous  and 
rich  and  gave  the  world  the  telephone.  By  a  thou- 
sand such  notions,  inventions,  and  discoveries  and  by 
the  development  of  our  fruitful  soil,  the  wealth  of 
our  land  has  mounted  into  the  billions  until  every 
day  of  the  year  witnesses  the  addition  of  ten  millions 
of  dollars  to  our  financial  strength  and  power. 

And  the  great  bulk  of  all  of  this  enormous  wealth 
has  come  out  of  those  things  that  have  added  to  the 
intellectual  strength  of  the  people  and  the  infinite 
treasury  of  their  knowledge,  elevating  the  character, 
the  self-respect,  the  taste,  and  the  culture  of  the 
people. 

And  the  character  of  the  wealth-getting  of  to-day 
is  seen  in  the  uses  that  are  made  of  it.  The  miser 
is  a  curiosity.  The  man  who  hoards  money  or  with- 
holds It  from  useful  ends  is  despised  and  ridiculed 
by  his  fellow-men,  and  the  more  he  has  by  such  proc- 
esses the  meaner  he  is  made  to  appear.  This  is  the 
clearest  evidence  of  the  way  in  which  the  people 
estimate  riches. 

It  is  a  fact  so  universal  that  the  exception  is 
odiously  conspicuous  that  rich  men  to-day  are  the  first 
at  the  front  in  all  great  benevolences  and  philan- 
thropies. They  get  their  chief  happiness  out  of  their 
19  277 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

wealth  by  using  it  to  better  the  conditions  of  man- 
kind in  the  church,  in  education,  in  the  fine  arts,  and 
in  institutions  of  mercy.  The  world  never  has  seen 
anything  like  it.  It  is  a  rare  thing  to  see  a  man  mak- 
ing money  for  money's  sake.  It  would  be  an  un- 
worthy thing  for  a  man  to  refuse  to  make  money  for 
useful  purposes. 

I  know  that  Christ  has  been  quoted  as  an  enemy 
of  wealth.  It  is,  however,  like  many  other  mistaken 
conceptions  of  His  teachings.  He  drew  the  line  at 
the  useful  purpose  and  employment  of  riches.  He 
left  one  rich  man  in  perdition  for  having  no  pity 
and  refusing  to  help  the  perishing  poor.  He  was 
exceedingly  sorrowful  over  another  who  thought 
more  of  his  possessions  than  of  the  truth  which  was 
worth  a  million  such  fortunes,  whose  soul  was  being 
starved  and  dwarfed  by  the  love  of  riches.  But  He 
said  of  another:  "  I  have  not  seen  so  great  faith,  no 
not  In  Israel  " — not  in  the  church. 

And  there  never  has  been  a  time  nor  a  cause  of 
Christianity  when  the  simple  Christian  office  and 
work  has  not  demanded  the  wealth  which  the  poor 
could  not  give.  Nor  has  there  been  a  time  when  It  has 
not  numbered  among  its  followers  men  of  riches, 
from  the  ruler  who  built  the  synagogue  to  the  rich 
man  of  Arimathea  who  begged  the  body  of  our  Lord 
that  he  might  lay  it  in  his  own  new  tomb  hewn  out  of 
the  rock.  And  how  God  honored  that  rich  man's 
tomb  by  making  It  the  only  Immortal  tomb  the  world 
ever  has  seen ! 

278 


TAINTED    MONEY 

I  remember  the  account  of  the  rich  man  and  the 
needle's  eye  and,  if  I  did  not,  I  should  be  reminded 
of  it  by  the  unthinking  clamor  of  a  class  that  seems  to 
think  that  if  you  are  only  poor  enough  you  will  get 
to  Heaven,  and  if  you  are  only  rich  enough  you  will 
go  to  hell. 

It  Is  hard  for  any  man  to  purchase  a  way  to 
truth  or  virtue  or  Heaven,  It  is  impossible.  And  it 
is  true  that  if  a  man  puts  his  whole  soul  into  the 
things  he  possesses  and  gives  no  attention  to  those  of 
his  neighbor,  he  can  no  more  go  through  the  strait 
gate  than  a  camel  can  go  through  the  needle's  eye. 
And  it  does  not  make  any  difference  whether  the 
needle's  eye  was  the  eye  of  a  needle  or  a  very  narrow 
place  so  called.  It  was  a  place  he  could  not  get 
through. 

But  God  has  made  the  rich  of  this  world,  with 
whom  He  made  His  grave,  to  serve  Him.  He  has 
shown  them  a  way  to  be  rich  and  to  be  humble,  to 
be  rich  and  to  be  poor  in  spirit,  to  be  rich  and  to  be 
stewards  of  His  kingdom,  to  have  this  world's  goods 
and  to  be  rich  toward  God. 

Anybody  can  be  rich  toward  God  by  being  de- 
voted with  what  he  is  and  with  what  he  has  to  a  life 
of  usefulness,  after  the  pattern  and  by  the  pure,  un- 
selfish spirit  of  Christ. 

The  man  who  had  laid  up  treasures  upon  the 
earth  and  was  not  rich  toward  God  was  the  man 
who  attempted  to  make  his  wealth  serve  his  happi- 
ness and  power.     He  was  one  of  the  rich  men  who, 

279 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

Mr.  Carnegie  says,  never  laughs.  But  the  rich  men 
who  know  God,  who  serve  their  race,  who  bless  man- 
kind, who  sympathize  with  the  poor,  laugh.  There 
are  kinds  of  checks  which  they  sign  that  make  them 
happy. 

We  ought  to  encourage  such  men.  We  have 
done  too  much  bewailing  the  rich  in  our  churches. 
We  have  too  often  misinterpreted  Christ  con- 
cerning them  and  have  made  our  attacks  indis- 
criminately and  driven  away  from  our  good  causes 
rich  men,  God's  stewards,  who  would  have  carried 
them  forward  nobly.  In  our  just  sympathy  for  the 
common  people  and  our  emphasis  upon  character  we 
have  given  the  impression  that  Dives  represented  the 
rich. 

God  wants  the  rich  men.  Christ  would  have 
used  Dives  if  he  would  have  followed  Him;  and  the 
rich  young  ruler  he  would  have  loved  and  shown 
how  to  get  genuine  happiness  out  of  his  riches. 
There  is  not  a  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  that 
intimates  that  Christ  would  make  all  men  poor  in 
purse.  He  did  not  come  to  impoverish  the  world. 
His  doctrines  have  made  it  rich  and  provide  ade- 
quate uses  for  its  riches.  The  hope  of  the  poor  is  In 
the  success  of  the  prosperous.  Poverty  is  not  helped 
by  poverty. 

We  seem  to  have  failed  to  appreciate  the  differ- 
ence between  the  rich  men  of  Christ's  time,  and  even 
of  the  feudal  times,  and  those  of  this  day.  The 
world  was  hoarding  its  riches  In  those  forms  that 

280 


TAINTED    MONEY 

Christ  rebuked.  The  men  of  the  feudal  period  se- 
cured their  riches  in  strong  castles  and  invested  them 
in  iron  chests  and  spent  them  upon  themselves.  The 
poor  were  no  better  for  such  rich  men,  the  world  was 
possibly  the  worse.  Although  it  is  difficult  to  see 
what  commercial  shape  it  could  have  taken;  because 
there  was  nothing  to  invite  investments,  the  great  in- 
dustries had  not  been  discovered,  invention  had  not  of- 
fered its  marvelous  opportunities,  commerce  was  a 
solitary  mercer.  There  was  nothing  to  do  with 
money  but  to  lock  it  up  and  stand  guard  over  it.  To 
compare  present  conditions  with  feudal  times  when 
the  rich  grew  richer  and  the  poor  poorer  is  a  dis- 
play of  profound  ignorance.  There  is  no  comparison 
that  does  not  reflect  great  honor  upon  the  men  ac- 
cumulating the  wealth  of  the  present  time,  who 
are  investing  that  wealth  in  ways  that  give  employ- 
ment to  millions  of  people  and  that  are  fast  making 
the  poor  man  independent  and  self-reliant. 

Those  who  inveigh  against  money  as  tainted  for- 
get to  what  extent  the  proceeds  of  great  business  en- 
terprises are  flowing  out  into  trades,  into  wages,  and 
into  philanthropies,  education,  art,  and  a  thousand 
civilizing  benefactions.  He  is  blind  to  twentieth-cen- 
tury civilization,  he  Is  deaf  to  the  march  of  these 
mighty  times  who  does  not  see  and  hear  the  relation 
of  vast  money-getting  to  Christian  progress. 

The  men  whom  such  men  curse  are  taking  the 
wealth  out  of  the  earth  where  it  has  lain  Inactive  for 
untold  centuries  and  by  mighty  commercial  engineer- 

281 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

ing  and  trade  methods  are  sending  it  everywhere  to 
bless  and  civilize  mankind. 

That  it  is  attended  with  the  selfishness  of  some 
designing  men  no  one  denies.  So  is  the  Christian 
church.  But  we  have  more  invested  in  the  sun's 
light  than  we  have  in  the  sun's  spots. 

The  railing  and  frantic  foaming  of  excited  men 
in  careless  adjectives  against  the  rich  is  a  serious  im- 
peachment of  their  intelligence. 

He  is  insufferably  small,  a  curious  anachronism  in 
his  times,  who  cannot  see  the  new  proportions.  He 
thinks  with  other  men's  voices.  He  is  an  echo  of 
echoes.  He  has  struck  against  these  gigantic  times 
only  to  rebound  into  empty  air,  merely  a  sound 
thrown  off  from  a  force  that  had  no  use  for  him,  and 
that  he  was  too  small  to  discern  and  appreciate. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

LABOR    UNIONS 

IT  is  a  strange  and  inconsistent  fact  and  one  which 
seems  to  have  been  overlooked  by  labor  union- 
ism that  the  very  principles  which  it  condemns 
It  makes  the  foundations  upon  which  it  constructs  its 
organization. 

It  curses  monopoly,  but  it  is  a  monopolist.  It 
accuses  "  employers  of  using  combined  capital," 
which  is  another  name  for  the  corporation,  of  "  de- 
basing labor  and  denying  It  its  lawful  and  just  share 
of  what  It  produces,"  and  then  proceeds  with  violent 
and  degrading  assaults,  sometimes  even  with  death, 
to  debase  and  make  impossible  all  labor  that  does  not 
obey  its  unlawful  and  tyrannical  mandates,  establish- 
ing a  labor  trust! 

It  is  as  much  a  monopoly  as  anything  we  find  in 
the  most  offending  trust.  It  attempts  to  be  a  labor 
trust,  and  that  which  it  claims  for  Itself  It  clamorously 
denies  to  capital.  It  insists  upon  having  the  exclusive 
monopolistic  rights  of  the  country! 

Finding  its  greatest  obstacle  In  corporations 
which  have  strength  to  resist  it  and  power  often  to 

283 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

overthrow  it,  the  labor  unions  naturally  make  their 
most  furious  assaults  against  them,  and  having  ac- 
tive and  voiceful  numbers  in  the  cities,  they  are  able 
to  command  the  politicians  and  demand  laws  to  fur- 
ther their  designs.  They  will  not  make  any  conces- 
sion to  the  mighty  labor  employers  upon  any  terms 
that  do  not  recognize  a  practical  partnership  in  the 
business,  a  dictatorial  one,  a  managing  and  con- 
trolling one. 

This  attitude  has  done  much  to  bring  into  this 
country  the  present  unfriendly  attitude  toward  cor- 
porate business.  A  persistent  effort  is  always  active 
to  create  the  impression  that  the  corporation  is  grind- 
ing the  poor.  Until  these  labor  organizations  got 
well  under  way  and  began  to  take  on  menacing  pro- 
portions we  had  not  heard  those  familiar  expressions 
about  "  predatory  wealth  "  and  the  charge  that  the 
rich  were  merciless  scoundrels. 

This  conflict  is  extremely  unfortunate.  It  has 
widened  the  gap  and  strengthened  an  unreasonable 
antagonism.  It  has  put  capital  and  labor  at  variance 
and  created  two  classes  that  need  not  to  have  ap- 
peared in  our  land.  Neither  can  exist  without  the 
other.  The  corporation  can  find  nothing  to  take  the 
place  of  man.  No  machinery  can  do  away  with  him, 
no  money  can  purchase  a  substitute  for  him.  The 
more  money  and  the  more  machinery,  the  more  men 
are  demanded. 

As  a  rule  the  employee  of  a  corporation  is  more 
secure  in  his  position  and  his  pay  than  he  could  be 

284 


LABOR    UNIONS 

if  he  were  hired  to  an  individual.  He  has  more 
property  behind  him.  He  is  hired  by  a  hundred  or 
a  thousand  individuals.  And  his  employers  have  a 
vital  interest  in  the  business,  and  the  character  and 
skill  of  the  workman  are  of  incalculable  interest  to 
them.  It  is  more  important  than  the  quality  of  ma- 
terial, or  motive  power,  or  machines,  and  must  be  con- 
served with  the  greatest  care.  A  corporation  that 
does  not  care  for  its  men  is  not  intelligent  in  man- 
agement and  will  not  long  prosper. 

A  great  railway  company  gives  careful  attention 
to  its  locomotives,  their  care,  their  oiled  serviceable- 
ness,  their  driving  by  intelligent  and  skilled  engineers. 
They  are  a  prime  asset.  How  infinitely  greater  is  the 
value  of  men  to  a  corporation  and  how  infinitely  im- 
portant that  that  which  is  committed  to  brains  and 
conscience  and  courage  shall  be  servea  by  the  best 
ability.  Therefore  the  essential  wisdom  of  a  wage 
that  shall  secure  the  most  skilled  and  temperate  and 
trustworthy  men,  that  shall  healthfully  house  them 
and  comfortably  clothe  them  and  put  beyond  worry 
the  home,  the  wife,  the  children,  the  aged  parents, 
and  furnish  something,  at  least  a  modest  something, 
for  refining  influences  to  the  cottage  or  apartment. 

Intelligent  and  profitable  corporate  management 
will  consider  these  things  and  secure  in  the  person  of 
employees  citizens  and  not  tramps,  gentlemen  and  not 
brutes,  men  self-respecting  and  therefore  respected  by 
all  patrons. 

The  employee  is  under  bonds  of  common  man- 
285 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

hood  and  honesty  to  reciprocate  that  policy  and  to 
make  that  business  his  own.  He  will  not  use  it  to 
get  what  he  can  out  of  it  and  to  regard  its  interests 
only  as  they  serve  him.  He  will  remember  that  as 
men  give  him  employment  and  make  it  possible  for 
him  to  earn  a  living  wage,  he  must  in  honor  give  such 
men  a  service  and  make  it  possible  for  those  men  to 
receive  from  the  business  the  Income  that  alone  will 
justify  their  investment  and  its  continuance. 

The  laborers  should  remember  that  the  Investor 
because  of  his  spirit  of  enterprise,  his  public  spirit  it 
may  be,  has  put  into  the  business  large  moneys  which 
he  might  have  retained  for  himself.  He  had  a  right 
to  it  if  he  got  it  honestly.  Without  following  the 
subtle  and  sophistical  unwindlngs  and  wanderings  of 
the  socialistic  philosophers,  we  will  say  that  for  all 
practical  purposes  and  by  consent  of  common  sense.  It 
Is  his  money  by  Inheritance  or  by  his  own  genius  of 
acquisitiveness.  Having  Invested  It,  he  has  a  right 
to  a  fair  return  for  it  if  he  Invested  wisely.  It  is 
in  the  business.  But  before  he  can  touch  a  dollar  of 
it  he  must  earn  the  laborer's  dollar.  The  laborer 
should  remember  that  this  wicked  man  of  the  cor- 
poration before  he  can  take  any  profit  must  pay  for 
material  if  he  is  a  manufacturer,  or  for  rolling  stock, 
repairs,  fuel,  etc.,  if  he  is  a  railroad  man,  and  earn 
dividends  for  stockholders  and  the  w'ages  for  the 
men.  The  laborer  has  a  lien  upon  the  whole  con- 
cern. And  he  can  carry  away  the  whole  property,  if 
necessary,  to  get  his  pay. 

286 


LABOR    UNIONS 

The  man  of  the  corporation  may  say  that  he  put 
his  money  into  the  business,  but  he  cannot  take  it  out 
and  carry  it  away  until  he  pays  the  men  who  la- 
bored for  him.  He  must  make  his  own  dollar  and 
the  dollar  for  the  laborer  and  pay  the  laborer's  dol- 
lar first.  The  laborer,  therefore,  is  under  the  highest 
obligation  to  render  a  service  that  will  secure  success 
to  the  business  if  honest  and  skilled  labor  will  do  it. 

And  before  he  embarrasses  that  business  by 
strikes  or  inefficient  service  he  should  Inform  himself 
as  to  the  business,  its  conditions,  and  prospects.  He 
certainly  is  under  obligation  to  it  to  that  extent.  If 
it  has  treated  him  on  the  principles  stated  above,  he  is 
obligated  beyond  a  day  or  a  job  laborer. 

In  case  of  just  discontent  for  any  cause,  he  is 
practically  a  partner  in  the  business,  a  fixed  amount 
of  the  profit  of  which  comes  to  him  weekly  in  wage 
and  he  should  request  and  has  a  right  to  an  arbitra- 
tion— to  hear  causes  and  present  complaints.  And  If 
he  has  rendered  satisfactory  and  faithful  service,  he 
has  a  moral  right  to  just  consideration.  He  cannot 
be  told  to  go  his  way  if  he  is  not  contented.  It  may 
be  that  he  has  a  right  to  be  discontented  and  that  the 
company  Is  morally  bound  to  inquire  Into  that  discon- 
tent and  as  far  as  possible  right  it.  It  Is  not  like 
disposing  of  a  machine.  It  Is  a  man  with  high  moral 
claims  who  has  Invested  his  all  of  training  and  ability 
for  that  work  and  Is  unfitted  by  his  years  of  faith- 
fulness to  it  to  go  elsewhere;  who  has  his  home  and 
church  and  friendship  and  family  ties,  interests  that 

287 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

were  not  bought  with  money,  for  money  cannot  buy 
them.  Every  honest  corporate  or  business  manage- 
ment of  any  kind  will  always  consider  these  things. 
And  when  the  adjustment  of  hours  and  wage  is  made, 
the  management  will  remember  the  difference  be- 
tween men  and  horses  or  men  and  machines. 

But  the  laborer  will  have  to  emphasize  his  obli- 
gation at  this  critical  point.  He  has  a  right  to  cease 
work  and  to  cease  in  a  body  if  denied  arbitration  or 
the  righting  of  wrongs.  No  one  can  legally  or 
morally  compel  him  to  work,  but  his  rights  cease 
there.  He  has  no  right,  except  by  a  plain  statement 
of  his  reasons  for  quitting,  to  dissuade  any  man  from 
taking  his  place.  And  he  has  no  right  to  conspire 
against  his  employer  or  to  injure  his  property.  That 
is  criminal. 

Thousands  of  business  men  in  this  country  who 
have  themselves  had  no  serious  trouble  with  labor 
have  been  alienated  from  labor  unions  because  of  the 
exceeding  unwisdom  and  sometimes  criminal  practices 
of  strikes — the  substitution  of  brute  force  for  rational 
arbitration  for  the  settlement  of  misunderstandings. 
There  often  has  been  a  defiance  of  law  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  property  and  infliction  of  bodily  harm  which 
intelligent  and  calm-thinking  men  cannot  tolerate. 

Labor  unions  that  ought  to  have  promoted  the 
efl'iciency  of  labor  callings  and  secured  to  hand  toilers 
great  advantages,  and  not  the  least  in  matters  out- 
side the  shop,  have  too  often  introduced  friction 
between  the  employer  and  employee  and  set  the  one 

288 


LABOR    UNIONS 

against  the  other.  The  walking  delegate  too  often 
has  been  an  ignorant  meddler  with  business  manage- 
ment or  has  tried  to  justify  his  office  by  a  swaggering 
appeal  to  hitherto  contented  workmen  that  they  break 
the  fetters  of  their  slavery  and  demand  their  propor- 
tionate share  of  the  world's  wealth!  The  result  is 
that  organizations  of  labor  which  ought  to  be  of  the 
greatest  service  are  often  the  greatest  hindrance  and 
curse. 

Perhaps  I  may  be  permitted  to  illustrate  from 
recent  experiences.  At  Syracuse  University  we  are 
erecting  several  great  buildings.  A  few  days  ago  my 
attention  was  called  to  a  team  unloading  some  ma- 
terial for  one  of  our  buildings  from  one  of  the  lead- 
ing mills  of  the  city.  I  was  told  that  after  that  job 
the  firm  would  be  in  trouble  because  no  union  man 
would  put  up  its  work  owing  to  a  conti-oversy  about 
the  employment  of  nonunion  labor  by  the  firm.  The 
firm  proposed  to  conduct  its  own  business  and  employ 
the  men  whom  it  wished  and  who  were  satisfactory. 
The  union  men  proposed  to  dictate  who  should  be 
employed  and  on  what  terms.  They  would  prevent 
as  far  as  they  could  that  mill  from  doing  any  fur- 
ther business  unless  it  was  conducted  to  please 
them. 

The  firm  wished  to  pursue  its  business  according 
to  its  own  judgment  and  with  the  freedom  and  the 
right  of  American  citizens.  The  contractors  desired 
their  work  from  that  mill  because  of  its  superior 
quality  and  reasonable   price — we   also   wanted   the 

289 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

work  from  that  mill — but  certain  union  men  working 
by  the  day  say,  "  We  will  label  the  place  '  Unfair,'  " 
and  notify  contractors  that  "  we  will  strike  if  they 
use  the  firm's  material."  No  one  will  deny  that 
union  men  or  any  men  have  a  right  to  stop  working 
for  that  firm  if  they  are  not  satisfied.  But  where 
did  they  get  the  right  to  forbid  other  men  working 
there  or  to  interfere  with  the  business  of  the  firm, 
even  ruining  it  if  possible?  Is  it  an  American  right? 
Do  such  men  represent  Americanism?  Are  their  acts 
in  harmony  with  either  our  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence or  our  constitutional  form  of  government? 
It  is  a  petty  despotism  and  tyranny  that  disgraces 
our  country  and  is  misguiding  thousands  of  men  as 
to  their  obligations  as  American  citizens.  It  is  a 
tyranny  that  interferes  with  the  inalienable  rights  of 
Americans  as  sacred  as  any  for  which  our  country 
has  contended  in  war. 

Only  dense  ignorance  of  the  principles  of  Ameri- 
can citizenship  or  indifferent  disloyalty  to  them  can 
explain  acts  so  atrocious.  It  is  so  lacking  in  fairness 
and  so  indiscriminating  In  many  Instances  that  it 
seems  like  a  mixture  of  ignorance  and  Indifference  to 
consequences.  There  was  an  instance  In  the  erection 
of  our  investment  building  in  Syracuse.  Pains  were 
taken  when  the  contract  was  let,  to  urge  preference  for 
Syracuse  mechanics  and  workmen.  There  was  some 
misunderstanding  or  disagreement  between  the  con- 
tractor and  some  union  men  with  regard  to  men  from 
out  of  town,   for  which  the  University  was  not  in 

290 


LABOR    UNIONS 

any  way  responsible  and  which  It  could  not  control. 
But  our  building  was  labeled  "  unfair  "  !  How  that 
punished  the  contractor  who  had  finished  his  work 
and  got  his  pay  we  could  not  understand.  Why  we 
were  penalized  who  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  trou- 
ble and  could  not  Influence  it  If  we  had  been  requested 
to  do  so,  we  never  have  ascertained.  Scores  of  men 
were  approached  and  threatened  with  loss  of  business 
if  they  became  tenants  of  the  building.  After  months 
we  were  told  that  the  "  unfair  "  taboo  would  be  taken 
off  If  we  would  pay  one  hundred  dollars,  reduced  to 
fifty  dollars,  and  finally  to  twenty-five  dollars.  Not 
a  cent  was  paid.  And  whether  the  building  is  known 
now  as  "  unfair  "  or  not  I  do  not  know. 

Were  these  men  loyal  American  citizens  who  as- 
sumed the  responsibility  of  embarrassing  a  property 
in  this  fashion?  Were  they  acting  within  the  law 
and  their  privilege?  Anyone  who  would  assert  that 
they  were,  Is  ignorant  of  the  simplest  principles  of 
our  government  and  of  our  Individual  rights. 

The  placards  were  anonymous  and  so  placed  that 
it  was  not  possible  to  trace  them  to  a  responsible 
head.  An  indication.  If  not  a  confession,  of  conscious 
lawlessness  in  this  case. 

Every  intelligent  man  knows  that  It  is  a  crime 
to  conspire  against  a  man's  business  or  to  do  violence 
to  his  person.  Have  we  men  among  us  who  propose 
to  act  the  part  of  criminals  under  the  pretense  of  bet- 
tering their  condition  as  workingmen? 

Let  us  trace  this  matter  a  little  further  Illustra- 
291 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

tlvely.  I  am  building  a  house,  for  instance.  I  wish 
to  select  the  plumbing  material  for  my  house.  I 
think  that  I  have  a  right  to  do  so.  But  I  am  sur- 
prised to  be  told  by  the  Association  of  Journeymen 
Plumbers  of  America  that  I  cannot  have  that  privi- 
lege. They  will  decide  that  question.  In  Section 
162  of  their  by-laws  they  say:  "  Realizing  that  at 
the  present  time  the  work  of  our  trade  is  being 
gradually  taken  from  us  by  reason  of  certain  manu- 
factured articles,  it  is  necessary  that  we  should  take 
some  united  steps  to  stop  the  use  of  such  plumbing 
goods  as  we  think  injurious  to  our  trade."  Then  the 
section  goes  on  to  specify  as  forbidden  things  the 
material  which  I  wish  to  put  into  my  house  and  which 
the  law  provides  that  I  may  use  !  The  very  spirit  that 
wrecked  Arkwright's  loom  and  opposed  nearly  all  in- 
ventions. 

Have  these  men  a  right  to  assume  this  dicta- 
torial role?  Must  I  submit  to  this  petty  tyranny? 
The  spirit  of  '76  must  have  fled  from  us — a  fright- 
ened ghost! 

I  want  men  to  work  six  days  in  the  week  upon 
my  house  because  of  the  season  or  urgent  circum- 
stances. There  are  men  who  want  the  work  but  this 
Association  of  the  Unions  says  (Section  159)  :  "  In- 
asmuch as  the  plumbing  business  throughout  the  coun- 
try is  insufficient  to  furnish  employment  to  more  than 
fifty  or  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the  journeymen,  and 
recognizing  the  fact  that  by  reducing  the  hours  of 
labor  it  will  have   a   tendency  to   keep    more   men 

292 


LABOR    UNIONS 

employed,  it  is  hereby  resolved  that  the  United  As- 
sociation establish  a  National  Half-Holiday  for  Sat- 
urday "  ! 

A  new  authority  for  establishing  national  holi- 
days !  That  men  may  abstain  from  work  all  the  week 
if  they  choose  no  one  will  dispute.  But  these  men 
propose  to  limit  all  men  in  this  particular.  They 
propose  to  create  an  entirely  artificial  condition  of 
things  among  themselves  into  which  the  law  of  de- 
mand and  supply  shall  not  enter  and  the  embarrass- 
ment to  business  must  take  care  of  itself.  And  the 
union  men  of  the  whole  country  are  only  two  per  cent 
of  the  whole  body  of  laboring  men! 

That  the  trade  may  be  still  further  protected, 
these  men,  in  Section  157,  say  that  "  Local  unions 
throughout  the  jurisdiction  should  use  their,  best  en- 
deavors to  abolish  plumbers'  helpers  and  apprentices 
so  far  as  possible  "  !  Stop  the  making  of  mechanics! 
Here  is  a  trust  that  proposes  to  force  wages  by  lim- 
iting wage-earners.  Business  is  menaced  by  both 
shortened  hours  and  decreased  workmen  ! 

The  subject  is  interesting  as  you  proceed.  The 
pay  of  a  carpenter  or  machinist  is  not  graduated  by 
the  skill  in  the  case.  You  pay  the  same  for  a  poor 
man  as  for  a  good  man.  A  man  is  a  man  in  the 
union.  We  are  speaking  of  day  wages.  The  in- 
justice of  this  to  the  employer  is  transparent.  The 
injustice  to  the  mechanics  ought  to  be  equally  so,  for 
nothing  could  be  more  harmful  to  the  trades.  It 
encourages  the  unskilled,  careless,  and  slovenly.  It  is 
20  293 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

filling  up  the  trades  with  men  who  can  scarcely  saw 
off  a  board  and  drive  a  nail  straight. 

In  the  instruction  of  union  men  some  things  are 
to  be  done  if  practicable,  otherwise  they  are  to  be 
omitted!  They  are  not  to  ride  a  bicycle  between 
hours  except  to  and  from  dinner.  If  they  have  to 
return  to  the  shop  with  a  measurement  or  for  ma- 
terial, for  instance !  I  have  known  two  thirds  of  the 
time  of  a  job  spent  in  the  street.  "  Members  work- 
ing on  a  job  a  greater  distance  from  their  residence 
than  their  shop  and  not  having  to  report  at  the  shop, 
shall  not  reach  the  job  any  sooner  than  they  would 
if  they  left  the  shop  at  7.55  A.M."  Any  member 
having  to  work  overtime,  for  which  by  the  way  he 
gets  fifty  per  cent  more  pay,  is  to  quit  at  five  and 
come  back  at  6  or  later!  Men  are  not  to  go  to  the 
office  for  pay.  The  pay  must  be  brought  to  the  job. 
Probably  because  the  employer's  time  is  worth  so 
much  less  than  the  laborer's !  Some  of  these  things 
are  not  to  be  applied  where  the  conditions  are  spe- 
cially unfavorable  to  them — where  the  people  will 
not  stand  it! 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  for  my  saying  in 
a  recent  address  that  we  have  no  more  objectionable 
trust,  no  worse  form  of  despotism  in  this  country  to- 
day than  some  forms  of  labor  unionism.  This  is  why 
I  say,  speaking  of  this  form  of  labor,  that  such  men 
are  getting  all  they  earn  and  some  of  them  much 
more  than  they  earn,  considering  the  unselected 
ability  of  the  men.      Considering  the   reduction   of 

294 


LABOR    UNIONS 

hours  twenty  per  cent  and  the  increase  of  wages  from 
fifty  to  seventy-five  per  cent,  my  statement  is  moder- 
ate, and  when  it  comes  to  paying  a  $1.50  mechanic 
$3.50,  it  is  too  plain  in  that  case  to  require  even 
emphasis. 

In  their  present  forms  such  labor  unions  are  de- 
structive to  business  and  the  workingmen's  best  in- 
terests. They  should  be  resisted  by  all  sober-thinking 
men.  They  alone  are  responsible  for  the  increase  of 
the  open  shop  and  the  opposition  of  thousands  of 
strong  men  who  have  come  through  the  labor  call- 
ings to  their  present  positions.  The  opposition  will 
increase  unless  they  are  modified  and  brought  into 
harmony  with  the  principles  of  civic  liberty.  In  my 
opinion  fifty  per  cent  of  the  union  men  are  not  in 
agreement  with  present  union  practices  and  are 
coerced  by  fear  into  retaining  their  membership. 

There  might  be  a  union  of  great  help  to  its  mem- 
bership and  to  business.  I  believe  in  labor  organiza- 
tions as  I  believe  in  corporations.  But  let  it  be  a 
union  upon  principles  of  mutual  benefit  and  helpful- 
ness both  to  the  laborer  and  to  the  manufacturer, 
both  to  the  workingman  and  to  the  contractor.  Let 
it  be  for  the  purpose  of  securing  to  the  employer  the 
greatest  proficiency,  insisting  upon  only  skilled  me- 
chanics for  mechanics'  pay.  Let  it  consider  the 
interests  of  the  business  and  how  to  serve  them.  Let 
it  compel  its  wage,  not  by  excluding  those  who  choose 
to  work  for  less  or  to  work  when  the  union  men 
will  not  work,  but  by  furnishing  the  highest  type  of 

295 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

man  and  workman  so  that  business  men  will  say: 
"  If  you  want  the  most  skilled  and  reliable  mechanic 
or  laborer  you  must  get  them  from  the  union.  They 
will  have  no  one  in  the  union  but  a  first-class  man." 

Don't  say  to  Mike  who  is  laying  four  hundred 
bricks  a  day,  a  fair  day's  work:  "  Hold  up  there  and 
let  Tom  have  a  chance,  for  he  can't  lay  over  three 
hundred."  Rather  say  to  Tom :  "  You  must  be  con- 
tent to  be  classified  with  ordinary  workmen  until  you 
can  do  as  much  work  as  Mike.  And  you  can  have 
pay  for  only  what  you  do  in  a  workmanlike  manner." 

Let  the  union  have  clubrooms  and  discuss  thrift 
and  temperance  and  home  sanitation  and  ways  and 
means  of  getting  the  home  and  furnishing  it  with 
books  and  periodicals  for  mental  improvement  and 
spend  some  of  the  time  in  amusements  and  healthy 
games  now  spent  in  the  saloons.  Let  the  energy  now 
being  put  into  opposition  to  capital  be  used  in  self- 
improvement  and  furnishing  a  higher  class  of  me- 
chanic. 

It  is  folly  to  say  that  men  who  oppose  the  un- 
American  type  of  union  with  its  tyrannical  rules  and 
its  walking  delegate  without  knowledge  of  human 
nature  or  the  commonest  instincts  of  diplomacy,  a 
bad  feature  of  a  bad  system — it  is  folly  to  say  that 
such  a  man  Is  out  of  sympathy  with  the  poor  or  the 
working  class. 

Let  the  labor  union,  instead  of  discouraging 
strong,  intelligent  young  apprentices,  insist  upon  laws 
against  child  labor  and  combine  with  business  to  re- 

296 


LABOR    UNIONS 

move  vicious  causes  of  poverty  and  to  relieve  the 
worthy  poor  of  every  name  and  clime. 

Give  us  unionism  that  recognizes  the  common 
rights  of  men  and  seeks  to  promote  labor,  and  that 
is  something  more  than  intolerant  selfishness.  But 
so  long  as  unionism  obstructs  business  which  it  can 
neither  create  nor  control  and  denies  to  nonunion 
workmen  the  right  which  it  claims  for  itself  to  work 
or  not  to  work,  and  so  long  as  it  attempts  to  fix 
arbitrary  and  destructive  conditions  upon  the  trade 
callings  and  is  a  menace  to  the  peaceable  pursuits  of 
men,  all  good  citizens  should  oppose  it. 

All  men  with  any  love  of  freedom  should  patron- 
ize boycotted  firms  so  long  as  the  boycott  is  on  and 
give  the  preference  of  employment  to  men  who  are 
denied  employment  by  the  arbitrary  and  un-American 
acts  of  labor  union  tyranny. 

A  gentleman  writes  me  that  the  tyrannical  and 
oppressive  treatment  that  he  has  received  in  his  city 
from  a  labor  union  ought  to  make  the  veterans  turn 
In  their  graves.  I  could  not  refrain  from  remarking 
that  this  man,  who  requested  that  his  name  be  not 
given,  for  it  would  ruin  his  business,  would  do  well 
to  cultivate  a  little  of  the  spirit  of  the  veterans  and 
turn  before  he  gets  to  his  grave. 

Such  a  form  of  union  is  criminal  and  men  who 
submit  to  It  are  a  disgrace  to  free  American  citizen- 
ship. They  cannot  afford  to  purchase  business  at 
such  a  price.  There  are  greater  assets  than  business 
success,  and  freedom  is  one  of  them.    We  praise  men 

297 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

who  die  for  it  and  then  allow  ourselves  to  be  tagged 
with  the  degrading  badge  of  a  cowardly  servility  by 
the  insolent  authority  of  a  labor  union! 

With  mutual  improvement,  with  justice  in  the 
labor  callings,  with  a  fair  proportionate  per  cent  of 
the  profits  of  business  for  skillful  and  honest  service, 
with  a  dignified  citizenship  in  labor,  all  men  should 
cooperate.  But  with  the  compulsory  doctrines,  the 
arbitrary  demands,  the  violent  attacks,  the  obstruc- 
tive tactics  against  employers  or  workmen,  we  should 
take  issue  as  against  an  alien  foe  of  our  country. 

We  cannot  compel  men  in  this  land  to  do  any- 
thing but  obey  the  laws.  We  cannot  force  men  to 
use  their  capital  to  furnish  employment  or  say  to 
them  what  kind  of  laborers,  skilled  or  otherwise,  they 
shall  employ.  They  are  not  obliged  to  do  business 
at  all  unless  they  choose  to  do  so.  Attempts  upon 
the  part  of  labor  unions  to  manage  business  in  wages 
and  hours,  in  employees  and  methods,  have  driven 
millions  of  capital  out  of  labor-producing  business 
and  kept  it  shut  up  in  inactive  deposits.  We  cannot 
compel  men  to  work  and  we  cannot  forbid  their  work- 
ing if  they  can  find  work  to  do.  Therefore  any 
organizations  which  attempt  to  create  arbitrary  and 
unnatural  conditions  and  which  undertake  to  take 
charge  of  labor  and  capital  are  the  extreme  of  folly. 
They  merit  no  consideration  except  contempt,  and  be- 
cause they  are  tyrannical  should  be  allowed  a  place 
in  this  free  country  only  until  laws  can  be  made  to 
suppress  them.     Strange  inconsistency  that  prosecutes 

298 


LABOR    UNIONS 

a  corporation  for  "  restraining  trade  "  and  flatters 
and  pampers  despotic  organizations  which  have  for 
one  of  their  purposes  the  restraining  of  labor! 

Curiously,  the  Bricklayers  and  Masons  Union 
of  America  starts  out  with  the  noble  declaration: 
"  Whereas  God  in  his  infinite  wisdom  has  endowed 
all  men  with  certain  inalienable  rights,  among  which 
are  the  right  of  life,  hberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness," and  proceeds  to  prescribe  the  methods  by 
which  they  shall  "  scab  an  employer  "  !  The  noble 
rights  which  they  have  copied  from  our  Declaration 
of  Independence  do  not  seem  to  apply  to  "  scab  em- 
ployers "  ! 

But  ours  is  a  freedom  that  has  no  classes  in  it, 
and  all  men,  employers  and  employed,  are  guaranteed 
equal  rights  and  must  cooperate  to  secure  universal 
freedom.  Upon  that  principle  only  c^n  success  come 
to  all. 


CHAPTER    XVIII 


WORKINGMEN 


I  APPRECIATE  the  fact  that  I  enter  upon  sen- 
sitive ground  as  a  professional  man  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  workingman.  But  that  sensi- 
tiveness has  no  sure  footing.  Nineteen  twentieths  of 
the  professional  men  have  been  poor  men's  sons  who 
know  what  it  is  to  live  in  an  honest,  clean,  humble 
home  and  to  work  with  their  hands,  and  the  other 
twentieth  or  whatever  that  exact  fraction  may  be  are 
to  be  pitied  because  they  have  not  known  the  best 
and  sweetest  manner  of  life  known  to  men.  "  The 
Cotter's  Saturday  Night  "  tells  the  story  In  the  fra- 
grance of  spring  flowers.  Nearly  every  millionaire 
of  this  country  has  sprung  up  from  such  a  home  of 
piety  and  frugality  and  finds  his  happiest  moments 
in  the  remembrance  of  it,  and  not  In  the  use  or  con- 
templation of  his  riches. 

The  privilege  of  labor  is  the  greatest  riches  men 
can  have.  I  know  the  workingman,  for  I  have  been 
one,  from  herding  government  mules  to  rolling  a 
truck  on  a  steamer's  deck,  from  driving  a  mud-scow 
stage  to  ranching  in  the  far  West.     The  plow,  the 

300 


WORKINGMEN 

axe,  the  spade,  the  scythe  are  instruments  to  which  the 
callouses  of  my  hands  have  borne  faithful  testimony. 
I  did  not  attain  to  the  dignity  of  the  mechanic  la- 
borer, but  he  is  the  same  genus.  I  know  him  and 
respect  him  as  I  do  all  honest  laborers. 

My  blood  runs  hot  and  adjectives  more  forcible 
than  elegant  multiply  in  my  mind  when  I  see  in  dem- 
agogic print  or  hear  in  ranting  speech  this  man 
whom  I  used  to  be,  and  hundreds  of  thousands,  yes, 
millions  of  my  fellow-citizens,  appealed  to  or  spoken 
of  as  serfs  or  as  an  oppressed  and  downtrodden  race 
— terms  and  teachings  borrowed  from  Europe  and 
imported  for  political  purposes  by  the  malcontents, 
who  know  no  road  to  power  except  the  road  of  de- 
struction to  the  prosperous  and  free. 

Happily  for  the  country,  our  native  workingmen 
and  the  men  of  a  second  generation  of  the  most  of 
our  immigration  resent  the  imputation  and  challenge 
it  with  the  independence  of  their  action  and  their 
votes.  There  can  be  no  proletariat  in  this  country. 
The  serf  is  an  impossibility  to  our  workingmen  unless 
they  make  themselves  so  by  joining  the  ranks  of  those 
who  never  have  had  a  higher  conception  of  the  labor- 
ing class.  If  they  permit  themselves  to  be  rounded 
up  and  herded  by  the  clamoring  socialists  who  have 
no  fixed  doctrines  but  discontent  and  envy,  they  will 
become  a  party  as  distinctive  in  its  distress  and 
wretchedness  as  anything  in  the  land  from  which 
their  leaders  and  doctrines  have  come.  If  they  re- 
main   intelligent,    self-thinking,    self-respecting,    and 

301 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

self-governing,  they  will  remain  what  they  ever  have 
been,  the  strength  of  the  Republic,  the  fathers  of  the 
great  men  of  the  State  and  the  professions,  and  from 
their  ranks  will  continue  to  arise  the  men  of  capital 
and  power  in  commerce. 

I  shall  not  be  misunderstood  if  I  say  that  the 
workingman  must  not  make  the  mistake  of  accepting 
the  teachings  that  he  is  the  only  worker  and  that  upon 
him  is  the  burden  of  the  age.  I  have  said  that  I 
know  what  hand  toil  is.  The  earliest  of  early  hours, 
wet  and  dark  nights,  and  aching  bones  and  muscles 
are  familiar  to  me,  but  I  never  knew  toil  so  wearying 
and  aging  and  exhausting  as  I  have  known  since  I 
laid  down  manual  labor  and  took  up  the  responsibil- 
ity of  a  professional  life.  It  is  not  the  laborer  with 
his  hands  who  passes  the  wakeful  nights  and  the  days 
that  have  no  eight-hour  whistle.  It  is  the  despised 
capitalist  who  spends  sixteen  hours  of  day  and  night 
planning  the  business  that  yields  a  good  and  sure 
wage  to  the  eight-hour  laborer.  It  Is  the  man  who 
gets  no  more  for  himself  than  a  living  which  is  not 
more  wholesome  than  that  of  the  well-paid  working- 
man  and  whose  anxiety  and  task  are  a  hundredfold 
greater.  The  man  who  envies  him,  envies  that 
which  never  had  an  element  of  satisfaction  in  it  since 
Solomon  pronounced  upon  the  vanity  of  riches.  The 
only  happiness  he  has  is  from  the  same  source  as  that 
of  the  man  he  employs,  the  doing  of  things,  the 
achievement  of  a  purpose,  the  making  of  money  that 
he  cannot  spend  or  the  spending  of  which  but  increases 

302 


WORKINGMEN 

restlessness  and  discontent  so  plainly  seen  as  It  passes 
from  one  form  to  another.  We  all  are  worklngmen, 
and  the  hardest  work  Is  done  by  those  who  are  In  the 
greatest  spheres  of  active  life. 

The  worklngman  should  not  be  deceived  by  the 
absurd  doctrines  of  the  little  socialists  who  have  so 
much  sympathy  for  him  and  who  assert  that  he  Is  the 
only  producer  on  the  earth,  that  no  other  work  ex- 
cept the  work  of  the  hand  adds  to  the  world's  wealth. 
These  men  have  a  sympathy  for  dally  tollers  about 
In  proportion  to  their  distance  from  the  plow,  the 
anvil,  and  the  carpenter  bench. 

Day  labor  adds  to  the  world's  wealth  and  there 
could  be  none  without  It.  Wealth  adds  to  labor  Its 
wage  and  there  could  be  none  without  It,  except  that 
of  the  primitive  and  simple  forms  of  savage  life. 
The  world  has  come  on  up  to  these  summit  centuries 
because  the  rich  and  the  poor  have  dwelt  together 
and  the  Lord  has  been  the  maker  of  them  all. 

Nothing  Is  more  absurd  than  the  teaching  that  the 
labor  of  the  hand  has  produced  the  wealth  of  the 
world  and  the  rich  do  nothing  and  therefore  should 
have  nothing.  This  Is  a  doctrine  of  riotous  discon- 
tent that  incites  people  to  the  destructive  feelings 
that  the  man  who  owns  the  factory  and  works  much 
harder  than  those  whom  he  employs  Is  defrauding 
them  because  he  does  not  divide  up  the  factory  with 
them  and  take  his  place  at  a  lathe  or  a  drill  press — 
a  silly  doctrine  that  takes  no  account  of  labor  done 
with  brains,  which  Imposes  the  greatest  tax  upon  nerv- 

303 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

ous  energy  and  the  very  centers  of  physical  force. 
There  was  once  a  carpenter  who  afterward  became 
a  man  of  sorrow  and  acquainted  with  grief.  In  which 
capacity  did  He  the  greater  labor? 

There  is  more  than  the  hand  in  the  labor  of  the 
world.  There  was  not  much  being  done  when  the 
hand  was  the  only  thing  that  worked.  It  was  only 
after  the  brain  began  to  work  and  men  discovered 
ways  of  developing  the  resources  of  the  earth  by  the 
forces  of  nature  and  by  a  thousand  inventions  which 
sometimes  the  man  who  worked  with  his  hands  tried 
to  destroy,  that  hand  work  did  anything  except  in 
the  rudest  ways.  In  the  polite  arts  the  hand  follows 
the  ideal.  In  the  useful  and  practical  arts  the  hand 
follows  the  invention. 

Will  it  be  said  that  the  mind  worker,  who  per- 
haps may  never  touch  a  tool  or  strike  a  blow  of  man- 
ual labor,  but  who  thinks  out  in  all  of  its  detail  the 
typewriter  that  furnishes  thousands  of  young  women 
with  day  labor,  shall  have  nothing  of  profit  from  his 
invention,  and  that  the  promoter  who  has  a  peculiar 
genius  for  putting  it  upon  the  market,  though  no  abil- 
ity to  become  a  machinist,  nor  physical  strength  for 
a  most  indifferent  laborer,  shall  reap  no  benefit  out  of 
it?  Do  these  men  produce  nothing  because  their 
hands  have  never  labored? 

This  man,  who  worked  with  his  brain  only,  pro- 
duced results  which  have  been  worth  to  the  world  in 
work  the  labor  of  a  million  men  who  toil  with  their 
hands  simply.     And  so  far  as  the  rich  are  concerned 

304 


WORKINGMEN 

there  are  no  arbitrary  bounds  fixed  to  that  class.  The 
limits  are  being  passed  over  both  ways  every  day. 
The  rich  of  this  morning  are  poor  to-night  because 
the  working  mind  was  inefficient,  or  careless,  or 
"  took  a  day  off,"  or  was  deceived  and  robbed,  or  be- 
cause some  natural  changes  came  upon  them  like  an 
unexpected  frost  or  flood. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  poor  man  applied  the  earn- 
ings of  his  hands  to  some  happy  investment  with  his 
mind  and  made  them  ten  thousandfold  greater  in  a 
year  and  greater  many  times  over  than  all  he  could 
have  hammered  out  of  his  anvil  In  a  lifetime.  Not 
a  year  passes  that  the  employer  does  not  give  place 
to  the  employed.  The  errand  boy  of  the  store  yes- 
terday owns  the  store  to-day.  And  he  came  into 
possession  of  It  by  the  labor  of  his  mind.  He  did 
three  things.  He  labored,  he  saved,  he  invested,  and 
he  was  three  men  In  these  things  and  he  had  a  perfect 
right  to  what  was  paid  to  him  for  his  daily  toil,  to 
what  he  put  In  the  savings  bank — owned  by  men  who 
had  money  enough  to  keep  It  safely  for  him — and  to 
what  he  invested  when  by  his  ability  and  wisdom  It 
became  a  store  or  a  factory  or  a  ship  or  a  railroad. 

That  man  all  the  way  through  is  the  day  laborer 
and  he  has  as  much  right  to  what  he  has  in  the  last 
degree  as  he  had  in  the  first,  and  he  is  doing  greater 
things  by  the  multiplying  of  the  results  of  his  toil 
than  he  did  with  his  simple  day  wage.  He  is  a  day 
toiler,  using  with  his  mind  the  results  of  those  days 
of  hand  toil,  and  it  Is  absurd  in  the  extreme  to  say 

305 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

that  he  Is  anything  else.  And  if  at  the  end  he  wishes 
to  give  the  results  of  those  hand-and-hand  days' 
labor  to  his  sons  and  daughters  to  use  and  enjoy,  he 
has  as  much  right  to  do  so  as  he  had  to  work,  for 
them  when  he  carried  home  at  night  in  his  empty 
dinner  pail  the  money  that  fed  them  and  clothed  them. 
Another  man  did  not  carry  his  wages  home,  but  left 
them  in  a  saloon.  Had  not  the  first  man  a  right  to 
feed  his  children  and  clothe  them  better  than  the 
second  man?  Still  another  had  sickness  and  trouble. 
Must  the  first  man  starve  his  children  and  leave  them 
naked  as  a  consequence?  It  is  a  case  where  we 
bear  one  another's  burdens  by  every  man  bearing 
his  own  burden.  The  right  of  a  man  to  go  on  to  his 
utmost,  earning,  saving,  investing,  is  as  plain  as  his 
right  to  choose  the  place  where  he  will  live  and  the 
kind  of  things  he  will  do.  And  if  he  can  help  his 
neighbor  it  is  not  by  dividing  starvation  with  him  but 
by  sharing  in  rational  ways  what  he  can  add  to  the 
world's  wealth  that  can  be  used  for  that  purpose;  and 
this  a  sound  wisdom  is  doing  in  private  kindnesses, 
hospitals,  colleges,  and  asylums,  in  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions of  dollars  of  invested  labor,  in  capital  and  cor- 
porate forms  of  business  every  year.  It  all  is  toil, 
the  laborers,  the  inventors  and  discoverers,  and  the 
rich  to  whom  was  lawfully  given  in  his  inheritance 
that  which  he  had  Increased  a  hundred  or  thousand 
times  by  the  labor  of  his  mind. 

Another   fallacy  which   should   not   deceive   the 
workingman  is  the  assertion,  ignorantly  repeated  by 

306 


WORKINGMEN 

the  agitators  from  year  to  year,  that  the  workingman's 
estate  becomes  increasingly  worse  with  the  increase  of 
wealth;  the  rich  growing  richer  and  the  poor  poorer. 
That  statement  is  being  opposed  by  facts  too  plain  to 
be  successfully  disputed. 

The  condition  of  the  workingman  has  improved 
steadily  with  the  increase  of  modern  wealth,  wealth 
that  has  been  invested  in  the  utilities.  The  corpora- 
tion has  been  conspicuously  his  greatest  friend. 

The  first  passenger  train  was  run  in  England  on 
September  15,  1830.  Since  that  time  wealth  has 
taken  on  the  alarming  proportions  which  we  are 
called  upon  to  check;  the  railway  became  a  corpora- 
tion as  soon  as  it  attempted  to  cross  any  considerable 
space  and  transport  passengers  and  freight  in  a  large 
way.  Soon  other  great  enterprises,  the  most  of  them 
inspired  by  the  railway,  called  for  millions  more  of 
money  than  any  one  man  had  and  for  a  genius  of 
administering  ability.  What  became  of  the  poor 
workingman?  By  this  time,  according  to  socialists 
and  anarchists,  he  ought  to  be  annihilated.  He  must 
have  been  a  very  rich  workingman,  for  he  has  been 
growing  poorer  during  all  this  time  of  the  develop- 
ment of  predatory  wealth.  There  certainly  ought 
not  to  be  anything  left  of  him  now. 

What  are  the  facts?  They  are  easily  obtainable. 
In  1830,  when  the  railways  began,  the  wages  of  farm 
hands  was  80  cents  per  day;  blacksmiths  got  $1.12  a 
day;  carpenters,  $1.57;  painters,  $1.25;  mill  opera- 
tors,   $.94;   day   laborers,    $.79.     To-day   the   day 

307 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

laborer  gets  from  $1.75  to  $2.00  per  day,  the  me- 
chanic from  $3.00  to  $6.00  per  day,  as  anyone  knows 
who  employs  carpenters  and  masons.  If  cost  of  liv- 
ing has  increased  greatly,  the  workingman  has  him- 
self to  thank  for  that  largely,  for  with  a  reduction  of 
one  fifth  of  the  time  taken  out  of  the  production  of 
materials,  there  must  of  course  be  one  fifth  added  to 
their  cost. 

But  a  more  striking  comparison  is  to  be  found  in 
the  days  preceding  the  great  accumulation  of  wealth 
and  especially  before  the  hateful  corporation  was 
known.  In  the  seventeenth  century  in  England 
wages  were  sixpence  a  day  and  the  condition  of  the 
workingman  was  one  of  abject  squalor.  In  the  be- 
ginning of  the  nineteenth  century  in  this  country 
wages  paid  in  produce  and  in  currency  would  have 
amounted  to  about  fifty  cents  per  day.  An  intel- 
ligent woman,  whose  young  womanhood  was  in  those 
days,  told  me  that  she  had  worked  for  fifty  cents  a 
week.  Compare  what  she  could  do  with  the  thou- 
sands of  kinds  of  employment  open  to  women  now — 
occupations  opened  by  capital. 

But  if  one  would  like  to  go  back  to  a  time  when 
living  was  cheap  and  no  one  was  ever  caught  in  the 
tentacles  of  the  octopus,  let  him  go  back  to  the  four- 
teenth century. 

The  American  Farmer  has  given  us  a  most  in- 
teresting and  instructive  compilation  that  grows  in  sig- 
nificance and  emphasizes  its  lesson  as  you  consider 
our  own  times.     It  is  said  that  "  memory's  geese  are 

308 


WORKINGMEN 

swans,"  and  there  are  great  flocks  of  these  swans  in 
the  romancing  of  the  present-day  sociahstic  fiction. 

To  those  who  have  not  examined  comparative 
conditions  there  seems  to  be  some  force  in  the  insist- 
ence of  the  sensational  novel  and  the  feeble-minded 
socialistic  magazine  writer.  But,  fortunately,  it  is 
possible  to  live  in  the  ages  gone  and  to  trace  the  estate 
of  man  up  to  these  heights  of  his  prosperity  and  glor- 
ious citizenship.  If  our  worklngmen  will  study  his- 
tory a  little  more  and  listen  a  little  less  to  ignora- 
muses who  talk  with  swelling,  empty  words,  they  will 
find  how  greatly  they  are  blessed  in  comparison  with 
any  past  age. 

Here  is  what  the  American  Farmer  finds:  "  Had 
you  lived  in  the  fourteenth  century  you  could  have 
bought  draught  horses  at  $.72  each,  and  oxen  at 
$1.25.  In  the  days  of  Henry  II  $^0.00  would 
have  equipped  a  farm  with  3  draught  horses,  half  a 
dozen  oxen,  20  cows  and  200  sheep,  leaving  a  balance 
of  $2.00  toward  the  payment  of  rent,  which  was  about 
$5.00  a  year.  In  England  pasture  and  arable  lands 
were  ridiculously  cheap,  two  cents  an  acre  for  the 
former  and  twelve  cents  an  acre  for  the  latter  being 
considered  a  fair  rental.  Two  cents  or  its  equivalent 
would  buy  a  pair  of  chickens  in  these  blessed  days  of 
old.  For  the  value  of  a  nickel  one  could  acquire  a 
goose  fit  for  a  Christmas  dinner  or  two  ducks  that 
would  make  a  fine  roast.  A  penny  would  purchase  a 
dozen  strictly  fresh  eggs,  and  wheat  fell  sometimes 
as  low  as  forty  cents  a  quarter,  or  eight  bushels.  This 
period  seems  to  have  been  the  paradise  of  topers,  as 
the  brewer  was  compelled  by  law  to  sell  for  two  cents 
21  309 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

three  gallons  of  beer,  the  equivalent  of  forty-eight 
glasses.  It  will  give  our  modern  labor  unions  the  cold 
shivers  to  read  that  three  cents  a  day  was  considered 
good  wages  for  an  ordinary  laborer.  [For  one  and 
two  third  days'  work  he  could  have  bought  a  goose.] 

"  Our  farmers  probably  will  heave  a  sigh  of  sym- 
pathy when  they  learn  that  even  at  harvest  time  four 
cents  was  the  highest  amount  expected.  Young 
couples  about  to  marry  had  no  such  terrors  before 
their  eyes  as  confront  them  in  this  era  of  prosperity. 
Housekeeping  might  safely  be  entered  upon  by  the 
most  timorous  in  those  '  good  old  days.'  House 
rent  was  so  low  that  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London 
paid  only  $4.80  a  year  to  his  landlord. 

"  The  Chancellor  of  the  British  exchequer,  the 
man  who  does  the  work  of  our  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, had  an  annual  salary  of  $192.  When  a  father 
sent  his  son  to  a  university  four  cents  a  day  was  looked 
upon  as  a  comfortable  allowance,  with  a  margin  for 
such  luxuries  as  wine  at  eight  to  twelve  cents  a  gallon. 
A  salary  of  $24  a  year  was  considered  munificent. 
King  Edward  VI  gave  his  daughter  an  allowance  of 
$4.80  a  week,  with  an  additional  $247.60  a  year  for 
the  maintenance  of  her  eight  servants.  The  bed  that 
a  king  then  slept  on  would  now  be  shunned  by  the 
humblest  farmer  in  the  land.  There  is  not  a  renter 
in  the  West  that  would  not  be  considered  rich  by  com- 
parison. Remember,  too,  that  they  had  no  railroads 
in  those  days,  or  decent  roads  of  any  kind.  A  trip 
of  a  few  hundred  miles  was  a  momentous  undertak- 
ing, and  a  man  setting  out  from  London  to  Edinburgh 
made  his  will  with  little  hope  of  getting  back.  Of 
course  there  were  no  interurbans,  or  street  cars,  or 
even  canals,  and  wheeled  vehicles  were  entirely  out  of 
the  reach  of  any  but  the  aristocracy. 

310 


WORKINGMEN 

"  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  back  to  the  four- 
teenth century  or  to  England  to  find  out  what  was 
meant  by  the  '  good  old  times.'  Come  along  down 
to  the  nineteenth  century  and  to  our  own  country  and 
see  how  people  lived  much  less  than  a  hundred  years 
ago.  Many  men  now  living  remember  when  men 
had  to  work  all  day  at  the  hardest  kind  of  work  for 
one  bushel  of  wheat.  Fifty  cents  in  trade  was  what 
one  got  for  beginning  at  daylight  and  grubbing  or 
splitting  rails  until  the  sinking  sun  reminded  him  to 
quit  his  arduous  task.  Farm  produce,  when  salable 
at  all,  was  absurdly  low.  There  was  no  market, 
only  the  neighborhood  consumption,  and  there  being 
little  or  no  money,  everything  was  barter.  Eggs 
went  begging  at  a  cent  or  two  a  dozen,  poultry  was 
but  little  better,  stock  of  all  kinds  at  the  very  lowest 
ebb,  and  no  farmer  could  hope  to  make  profit  off  any 
of  his  produce.  Merely  a  living,  as  the  result  of 
days  devoted  to  toil  and  nights  devoid  of  ease,  was 
the  best  that  could  be  anticipated  by  millions  of  pio- 
neer farmers  '  in  the  good  old  days.'  Some  senti- 
ment still  lingers  about  those  times.  We  recall  with 
interest  many  of  the  romantic  and  tragic  incidents, 
but  we  hardly  think  any  of  our  farmer  readers  would 
care  to  be  transported  back,  except  in  fancy,  to  the 
period  which  did  not  fully  end  until  the  last  century 
was  more  than  half  over.  *  The  good  old  times ' 
are  well  enough  for  the  poets,  the  writers  of  histori- 
cal novels,  and  the  ancient  dames  who  croon  in  the 
corners  of  the  blessed  days  of  linsey-woolsey  dresses, 
jeans  suits,  corduroy  roads,  and  open  cabin  doors. 
As  for  ourselves,  we  prefer  the  present,  despite  its 
graft  and  greed,  its  selfishness  and  its  sordidness,  for 
at  least  it  has  replaced  penury  with  plenty,  depriva- 
tions of  all  kinds  with  innumerable  comforts,  and  has 

311 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

changed  agriculture  from  a  groveling  calling  to  the 
noblest  and  most  prosperous  of  the  professions." 

There  never  were  times  that  were  so  kindly  to 
the  laboring  man  as  the  present.  His  labor  is  a  cap- 
ital which  he  can  invest  in  any  part  of  the  country 
and  if  he  does  so  wisely  it  will  yield  a  remuneration 
which  in  a  few  years  can  be  placed  where  it  will  make 
him  comparatively  independent.  If  there  are  many 
exceptions  they  are  In  those  conditions  of  providence 
which  cannot  be  charged  to  the  country  and  there  are 
no  more  of  them  than  there  are  among  the  men  of 
capital. 

The  workingman  gets  what  his  labor  is  worth  in 
the  market.  He  gets  what  he  puts  into  it.  It  is 
upon  the  same  principle  precisely  as  money  and  trade. 
If  there  is  much  money  it  is  worth  less.  If  the  mar- 
ket is  overstocked,  trade  is  sluggish  and  profits  are 
slow  and  men  must  wait  patiently  for  a  change  In  the 
commercial  tide. 

Labor  feels  a  similar  condition  of  supply  and  de- 
mand. The  workingman  carries  to  the  market  one 
day's  labor  and  the  market  pays  its  price  more  or  less 
according  to  the  demand.  He  gets  the  pay  for  that 
one  day's  work.  If  he  saved  yesterday's  labor  and 
last  week's  also,  he  can  get  pay  for  the  day  he  works 
and  pay  also  in  interest,  according  to  the  market,  for 
the  days  he  has  saved  up.  He  can  get  as  much  for 
what  the  days  are  In  wages  as  any  man  gets  on  a  like 
amount  at  interest  if  he  loans  them  out  as  wisely. 

312 


WORKINGMEN 

If  he  chooses  the  mirage  of  the  socialist,  if  he 
runs  after  the  ignis  fatuus  of  the  philosopher  who 
is  going  to  take  the  wealth  of  the  rich  and  divide  it 
among  the  laborers,  he  will  grow  very  hungry  and 
homeless.  If  he  will  let  the  saloon  alone  and  apply 
himself  simply  to  the  opportunities  which  his  honest 
hands  may  use,  it  has  been  computed  that  the  labor- 
ing men  of  the  country  could  own  three  fourths  of 
the  railroads  in  ten  years. 

There  never  was  a  country  where  so  many  and 
such  secure  facilities  were  offered  to  the  wage-earner 
to  deposit  safely  his  earnings  and  help  him  to  a  con- 
stantly increasing  income  from  the  dime  savings  bank 
to  the  share  of  a  successful  corporate  business,  and 
never  have  so  many  such  people  in  any  age  availed 
themselves  of  these  facilities.  The  savings  banks  are 
filled  with  the  earnings  of  the  poor.  It  is  said  that 
the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  is  owned  by  over  6,000 
persons. 

This  means  that  there  are  thousands  of  small 
holders.  The  New  York  Times  of  recent  date  tells 
us  that  in  the  disturbed  condition  of  the  market, 
due  to  the  unwise  rantings  against  capital,  "  Farm- 
ers, school-teachers,  mechanics,  clerks,  invaded  Wall 
Street  in  a  way  never  before  witnessed  and  took  away 
3,000,000  shares  divided  about  equally  into  lots  above 
and  below  100  shares  apiece.  It  was  said  that  50,- 
000  shareholders  were  added  to  the  lists  of  200  con- 
cerns. Very  little  went  abroad,  but  much  to  New 
England,  more  to  the  South,  and  most  to  the  West." 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

This  was  not  Invested  in  gambling  and  specula- 
tion, but  the  purchase  of  sound  properties  which 
will  recover  their  standard  values  when  the  in- 
sane ravings  against  corporate  capital  shall  finally 
cease. 

The  workingmen  have  it  in  their  power  to  re- 
establish the  values  of  this  country.  They  can  re- 
deem the  unions  from  the  demagogues  and  the  lazy, 
blatant,  walking  delegate,  who  justifies  his  election  by 
making  himself  a  trouble-maker  for  both  the  em- 
ployer and  the  laborer.  They  can  silence  the  agitator, 
who  insults  their  intelligence  by  comparing  them  with 
slaves  and  serfs.  They  can  establish  business  confi- 
dence by  giving  an  honest  day's  work  heartily  for 
honestly  and  promptly  paid  wages.  They  can  con- 
trol the  politics  of  the  country  and  make  legislation 
constructive  instead  of  its  burdening  the  country 
every  year  with  a  terrible  weight  of  impracticable 
and  mischievous  laws.  They  can  make  the  law 
and  order  and  thrift  and  happiness  of  every  com- 
munity. 

They  can  be  what  American  labor  must  be  if 
America  is  to  hold  steadfastly  her  place  at  the  head 
of  the  nations  of  the  earth,  the  bone  and  sinew,  the 
red  corpuscled  blood,  the  character  and  virtue,  the 
independence  and  self-reliance,  the  healthy  brain 
whence  spring  the  inventors,  the  spirit  of  enterprise 
whence  come  the  millionaires  and  creators  of  com- 
merce, the  home-makers  in  which  are  the  roots  of  the 
Republic. 

314 


WORKINGMEN 

There  can  be  no  land  and  country  without  them 
and  all  things  are  theirs.  There  is  nothing  to  which 
they  cannot  aspire  and  there  is  nothing  to  which  the 
workingman  cannot  attain.  He  is  not  a  class.  He 
is  the  citizen. 

There  is  no  workingman  on  earth  so  manly  as  the 
American  workingman.  The  remark  made  fre- 
quently in  these  days  that  wealth  tyrannizes  over 
him  or  that  he  cringes  to  the  rich  is  untrue.  Such 
things  are  said  by  men  who  know  little  of  the  Amer- 
ican workingman  and  generalize  from  exceptional 
cases. 

My  pastoral  experiences  in  Boston  and  New  York 
were  with  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  employer  and  the 
laborer.  I  cannot  recall  a  solitary  instance  in  which 
any  workingman  cringed  to  wealth  or  position.  1 
think  that  he  is  in  more  danger  of  an  extreme  of 
self-assertion  to  vindicate  his  just  claim  to  equal 
manhood. 

And  fairness  compels  me  to  say  that  I  recall  no 
instance  of  an  offensive  attitude  upon  the  part  of 
wealth  toward  the  workingman.  The  exceptions 
that  are  sometimes  cited  are  not  American  types 
either  of  the  rich  or  the  poor  and  those  exceptions 
usually  are  put  forth  in  offensively  patronizing  ways. 

There  is  extremely  little  class  friction  in  this 
country.  The  most  of  it,  as  we  have  observed,  is 
an  importation.  There  would  be  less  of  it,  and,  in- 
deed, none  at  all,  if  the  laboring  man  never  depre- 
ciated himself.     Let  him  set  the  highest  success  as 

3^S 


THE    RAID   ON    PROSPERITY 

his  mark — the  greatest  things  that  he  can  do.  That 
ennobles  one's  character  and  begets  true  contentment. 
That  marks  the  only  success  that  is  worth  having. 
Manhood  is  the  goal  of  us  all  if  we  have  a  worthy 
view  of  life,  and  all  things  beside  are  incidental. 


CHAPTER    XIX 

THE   REMEDY 

LAWS  will  be  a  staple  demand  as  long  as  there 
are  institutions  and  personal  obligations  of 
men  to  be  administered  by  varying  intellects. 
Laws  are  the  footing  courses  of  the  mighty  structure 
of  government.  It  is  not  built  upon  politics  or  par- 
ties nor  upon  personalities  and  popular  issues.  These 
are  variously  tempered  mortar,  usually  untempered 
and  sometimes  overtempered.  Sound'  laws  inter- 
preted by  men  high  above  partisan  or  personal  in- 
fluences are  the  solid  foundations  which  abide  forever. 
Popular  issues  are  sand  dunes,  often  wind-driven  by 
human  passion.  Men,  even  if  wise  enough  for  a 
given  time  and  issue,  give  us  no  guarantee  of  a  suc- 
cession of  wise  men,  and  what  you  leave  to  a  wise  and 
strong  man  to  do  becomes  the  precedent  for  an  un- 
wise and  weak  man  who  follows  him.  And  if  a 
wise  man  may  set  aside  law,  an  unwise  man  when 
he  comes  into  power  may  also.  The  only  safety  is  in 
government  by  constitutional  law  and  wise  statutes 
into  which  is  mixed  the  controlling  and  predominat- 
ing element  of  common  law. 

317 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

The  insistence  which  is  needed  in  the  country  to- 
day as  much  as  it  has  been  at  any  time  in  our  history 
is  for  that  which  is  more  imperiled  under  the  present 
administration  than  ever  before,  reverence  for  the 
Constitution,  the  common  law,  and  the  courts. 

Our  national  preservation  is  involved  here.  It 
was  that  reverence  which  held  us  in  the  days  of  our 
fathers  and  which  has  been  our  great  sheet  anchor  in 
every  critical  period.  We  are  threatened  now  by  the 
substitution  for  that  old  anchor  of  a  patent,  flukeless, 
weak,  and  malleable  thing  called  socialism;  an  experi- 
ment to  which  men  in  our  highest  authority  are  lend- 
ing themselves,  and  an  experiment  increasingly  peril- 
ous by  the  greater  size  of  the  ship  of  state  and  the 
infinite  value  of  her  cargo. 

We  hear  from  our  statesmen  at  Washington 
something  about  shaping  out  the  old  flukes  and  so 
stretching  the  cable  of  the  constitutional  anchor  as  to 
let  the  ship  slip  off  into  waters  now  desired  to  enlarge 
the  general  governmental  anchorage.  What  is  to 
check  the  slipping,  when  our  anchor  is  made  to  slip 
and  not  to  hold,  is  a  question  that  seems  not  to  trouble 
our  new  order  of  statesmen. 

If  you  will  permit  me  to  change  this  nautical  fig- 
ure of  our  ship  of  state,  I  might  say  that  the  doctrine 
which  it  is  suggested  that  we  are  to  accept  is  an  ad- 
justment of  the  compass  to  the  course  instead  of  to 
the  magnetic  meridian  by  which  all  safe  courses  must 
be  determined. 

A  wave  seems  to  be  sweeping  over  the  times 
318 


THE    REMEDY 

which  bears  down  law  and  order  and  constitutions 
and  substitutes  the  personality  of  man  and  makes 
opinions  law.  If  the  old  law  will  not  do  it,  make  a 
law  that  will  do  it.  If  a  Constitution  is  in  the  way, 
it  is  easy  to  show  that  there  has  been  that  in  the  Con- 
stitution which  our  founders  did  not  see  nor  dream 
that  they  had  put  there.  What  they  thought  the 
States  were  to  be  compelled  to  do,  it  is  easy  to  show 
that  the  States  are  not  to  be  permitted  to  do — be- 
cause "  they  arc  unequal  to  it  "  !  The  interpretation 
of  what  reservations  are  left  to  the  State  will  be  de- 
termined by  the  government  at  Washington — what 
is  good  for  them  to  do  and  what  is  harmful  for  them 
to  do ;  things  that  were  once  questions  for  the  courts 
to  decide  will  be  arranged  by  new  statutes  framed  by 
the  Chief  Executive  and  his  Cabinet  and  consented  to 
by  an  obedient  Congress.  The  States  have  their 
proper  place  in  this  new  theory  as  the  several  depart- 
ments of  government  to  carry  out  the  prescient  wis- 
dom of  the  ruler  of  the  Nation  and  his  champions  of 
the  new  government.  We  have  a  new  doctrine  of 
States'  rights.  We  are  told  by  the  President  that 
"  the  States'  rights  should  be  preserved  when  they 
mean  the  people's  rights,  but  not  when  they  mean  the 
people's  wrongs."  Now  if  those  words  had  not  been 
said  by  the  President  of  the  United  States,  I  would 
say  that  they  sound  like  the  words  of  a  politician  and 
not  a  statesman.  They  are  made  of  such  stuff  as  is 
thrown  to  the  galleries.  Who  is  to  be  the  judge 
of  the  quality  in  the  case,  as  to  which  are  the  people's 

319 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

rights  or  the  people's  wrongs?  Heretofore  the 
courts  have  decided  that  question,  and  the  courts  un- 
influenced by  executive  interference.  How  are  the 
rights  to  be  preserved  and  how  are  the  wrongs  to  be 
removed?  In  the  old-fashioned  way  through  con- 
stitutional revision  by  amendments  by  both  the  Con- 
gress and  the  States.  The  new  fashion  to  which  you 
are  asked  to  subscribe  is  to  read  into  the  national 
Constitution  new  interpretations,  or  if  you  are  in  a 
hurry,  make  a  new  statute  to  be  operated  by  one  of 
the  new  commissions  by  which  the  country  is  to  be 
governed  for  the  good  of  the  people. 

Some  of  us  are  so  old-fashioned  that  we  have 
supposed  that  whatever  rights  a  State  has,  good  or 
bad,  it  has  something  to  say  under  the  Constitution 
about  the  preservation  of  those  rights,  and  that  that 
is  not  a  question  for  Washington  until  it  hears  from 
the  States.  Because  we  can  compel  a  State  to  stay  in 
the  Union,  it  does  not  follow  that  we  can  rob  it  of 
its  inherent,  constitutional,  and  reserved  rights  and 
make  it  an  empty  shell,  a  useless  form  of  government 
only — a  vermiform  appendix. 

It  doubtless  is  true  that  for  some  things  we  must 
invoke  the  general  government.  But  the  govern- 
ment must  be  invoked  by  the  States.  The  States  are 
not  to  be  compelled  by  the  government  except  in  the 
things  to  which  they  have  constitutionally  consented. 

One  of  the  great  New  York  dailies  said  awhile 
ago  that  the  new  way  is  to  "  look  around  until  you 
find  some  abuse,  picture  it  forth  to  the  people  as  a 

320 


THE    REMEDY 

scaly  monster,  belabor  it  until  you  have  attracted  at- 
tention and  made  yourself  popular  as  a  deliverer  of 
the  enslaved,  then  rush  to  Congress  with  the  sugges- 
tion of  a  bill — the  vaguer  the  suggestion  is  the  safer 
it  will  be — to  draw  the  teeth  of  the  monster  and  tie 
his  legs.  Then  make  a  prodigious  fuss  over  your 
achievement  in  speech  and  writing  and  leave  the  law- 
making body  to  work  out  the  statutory  solution.  If 
the  legislators  raise  constitutional  objections,  de- 
nounce them  as  traitors  and  the  slaves  of  the  trusts. 
Few  practical  reforms  are  thus  achieved,  but  it  is  a 
first-rate  way  to  make  political  capital." 

There  is  nothing  more  dangerous  than  central- 
ized government,  especially  when  the  government 
gathers  authority  into  itself.  The  safety  of  this 
country  has  been  that  the  centralized  form  of  our 
government  has  been  only  such  as  the  people  have 
given  and  not  such  as  has  been  taken  away  from  the 
people.  It  was  one  of  the  principles  that  De  Tocque- 
ville  pointed  out  as  constituting  the  difference  be- 
tween the  Republic  of  France  which  went  to  pieces 
and  our  Republics,  that  in  France  the  rulers  governed 
from  the  center  outward,  while  with  us  we  rule  by 
the  people  from  the  outside  inward.  We  construct 
our  government  from  the  town  meeting  to  the  Leg- 
islature and  from  the  Legislature  to  the  Congress, 
and  in  that  order  we  construct  our  governmental 
forms,  the  officers  of  government  being  only  the 
agents  of  the  people.  And  their  prerogatives  are 
limited  and  their  privileges  and  duties  are  defined  by 

321 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

the  people  in  constitutions  both  of  the  Nation  and  the 
State. 

This  has  been  our  stability.  To  substitute  men 
for  law  or  the  party  in  power  for  the  Constitution  or 
to  permit  the  slightest  liberty  to  be  taken  with  it 
under  the  pretense  of  serving  "  the  people's  rights," 
is  to  yield  the  eternal  safeguards  of  the  country  to 
an  infatuation  and  a  delusion. 

And  permit  me  to  say  that  the  easy  use  of  the 
Constitution  for  the  purpose  of  personal  political 
doctrines  is  increasingly  dangerous  under  an  ex- 
tremely popular  administration.  Often  the  most  pop- 
ular rulers  are  the  most  dangerous,  and  insidious 
moves  are  made  upon  constitutional  liberty  under 
such  administrations  which  under  opposite  conditions 
are  instantly  detected  and  resisted. 

An  advance  is  being  made  into  paternalism  and 
the  centralization  of  government  by  commissions  the 
possibility  of  which  no  man  dreamed  ten  years  ago. 
What  would  have  become  of  the  political  head  of  a 
Cabinet  officer  twenty  years  ago  if  he  had  proposed 
to  stretch  the  Constitution  to  overcome  certain  re- 
served rights  of  the  States,  and  what  would  have 
been  the  political  following  of  a  Chief  Executive  who 
had  talked  of  abrogating  such  rights  under  the  plea 
that  they  did  not  serve  the  good  of  the  people?  Are 
we  in  America  ?  Has  this  been  America  for  the  past 
two  years?  Such  things  only  recently  have  been 
possible  to  America.  And  their  reign  should  be  as 
brief  as  their  introduction  has  been  recent. 

322 


THE    REMEDY 

Perhaps  what  I  now  say  may  be  slightly  para- 
doxical. We  have  too  many  laws  and  too  many 
lawyers — in  some  places.  Our  troubles  have  been 
precipitated  largely  by  statute-making,  and  the  mak- 
ing of  statutes  is  due  to  too  many  lawyers  in  Con- 
gress. Every  lawyer  has  to  make  a  law  to  justify 
his  election  among  his  constituents.  We  ought  to 
send  to  Congress  fewer  lawyers  or  say  to  the  lawyers 
whom  we  send :  "  We  want  you  to  see  to  it  that  there 
Is  not  another  law  made  for  twenty  years  and  to  help 
repeal  half  of  those  that  have  been  made  in  the  last 
twenty  years."  We  are  overlawed  until  about  every 
form  of  business  in  the  country  is  outlawed.  It  has 
come  about  by  men  confounding  forms  for  principles. 
The  principles  in  commerce  and  society  and  govern- 
ment are  few  and  simple  and  plain  and  for  their 
definition  and  enforcement  they  call  for, few  laws. 

The  principles  of  business,  whether  a  corporate  or 
an  individual  form  of  business,  are  practically  the 
same.  One  is  not  inherently  bad  and  the  other  in- 
herently good.  The  same  quality  of  human  nature 
is  in  both.  They  differ  in  size.  But  the  same  remedy 
is  demanded  for  the  same  thing  in  both.  And  if  the 
individual  who  whines  so  piously  got  hold  of  the 
corporation,  he  would  not  run  it  as  a  church  but  for 
profit.  It  has  been  so  from  the  beginning  and  will 
be  so  to  the  end,  and  a  thousand  years  after  the 
millennium  you  could  find  something  to  investigate  in 
business  either  individual  or  corporate. 

Up  in  my  old  State  of  Maine,  when  I  was  a  boy, 

323 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

a  couple  of  West  India  goods  stores  stood  on  the 
opposite  sides  of  the  way  of  a  single-street  town. 
One  day  the  proprietor  of  one  of  those  stores  sold  a 
gallon  of  West  India  molasses  for  two  cents  less  than 
the  dealer  on  the  opposite  side  sold  It  to  his  customers. 
At  once  a  war  of  competition  began  and  the  farmers 
carried  away  molasses  in  buckets  for  nothing  until 
one  of  those  traders  emptied  his  single  hogshead. 
But  the  other  one  had  two  hogsheads  in  stock  and 
won  out.  Of  course  it  was  a  wicked  thing  for  that 
trader  to  have  two  hogsheads  instead  of  one  when 
that  backwoods  war  began.  In  these  times  a  secre- 
tary from  some  commission  would  be  sent  up  there 
to  see  how  It  happened  under  our  railway  laws  that 
a  man  could  get  two  hogsheads  of  molasses  and  his 
neighbor  have  only  one.  One  of  those  men  was 
guilty  of  restraining  trade ! 

But  In  the  simple  old  times  it  passed  over,  a  little 
summer  whirlwind.  The  town  never  got  such  cheap 
molasses  afterwards,  for  two  fools  cured  themselves 
of  their  folly.  The  law  of  common  sense  made  a 
statutory  law  unnecessary. 

Wc  have  so  many  laws  and  so  many  sniffing  com- 
missions, so  many  special  and  assistant  prosecuting  at- 
torneys barking  on  the  scent,  that  the  business  man 
to-day  cannot  tell  from  one  day  to  another  whose  law 
he  Is  violating.  Men  have  been  arraigned,  within  a 
short  time,  who  were  as  much  surprised  as  any  man 
could  be  when  they  were  charged  with  criminal  busi- 
ness methods.    Things  that  were  lawful  suddenly  be- 

324 


THE    REMEDY 

came  unlawful,  and  things  lawful  from  the  beginning 
in  their  States  all  at  once,  by  hitching  a  commission 
to  the  Constitution  by  a  statute,  became  crimes  in  all 
of  the  States.  Unsuccessful  competitors  of  corpora- 
tions had  at  last,  through  long  preparation  of  a 
certain  hysterical  form  of  public  sentiment,  secured 
by  enactment  what  their  business  ability  had  failed  to 
accomplish,  and  men  who  had  pursued  business  prin- 
ciples and  methods  recognized  by  competitive  busi- 
ness since  the  world  began,  found  themselves  hounded 
from  court  to  court,  assailed  by  executive  proclama- 
tion, and  hooted  by  an  unthinking  and  prejudiced 
public. 

We  must  get  down  to  first  principles  and  ac- 
cept the  world  with  its  human  nature.  We  cannot 
make  the  millennium  by  Investigation. 

Archbishop  Ireland,  whose  Americanism  Is  as 
conspicuous  as  his  loyalty  and  devotion  to  his  Church, 
said  In  Washington  recently:  "  In  the  intentions  of 
the  fathers  of  the  Republic  political  liberty  was  to 
be  the  guardian  and  protector  of  civil  liberty.  It  was 
thought  that,  citizens  being  lawmakers,  no  laws  would 
be  enacted  that  would  go  beyond  what  was  neces- 
sary In  demanding  restrictions  of  civil  freedom. 

"  And  yet  is  there  not  some  peril  to  civil  liberty 
from  political  liberty,  at  least,  in  what  I  may  be  al- 
lowed to  call  the  exuberance,  the  riotousness  of 
political  liberty?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  have  too 
many  laws;  our  Legislatures  are  too  anxious  to  in- 
crease the  bulk  of  the  statute  book.  As  things  are 
23  325 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

tending,  we  shall  soon  have  so  many  laws  that 
wrapped  around  us  as  it  were  by  a  serried  mail  we 
shall  become  prisoners  forbidden  to  stir  or  walk." 
The  Archbishop  said  further:  '*  Let  us  be  on  our 
guard  that  in  the  pursuit  of  justice  we  do  not  bring 
on  injustice;  that  in  coveting  social  prosperity  we  do 
not  encounter  social  disaster  and  chaos.  There  is  in 
this  land  to-day  the  delusion  that  to  build  up  one  class 
naught  else  is  needed  but  to  pull  down  another,  and 
there  is  growing  up  among  us  a  hatred  of  success  in 
others,  however  much  that  success  may  have  been  the 
reward  of  most  praiseworthy  efforts.  That  accumu- 
lation of  capital,  corporations,  trusts,  may  have  had 
their  faults  and  may  need  to  be  watched  over  by  the 
State  with  diligence  and  care,  I  shall  not  deny.  But 
this  much  I  do  deny,  that  accumulations  of  capital 
and  corporations  are  to  be  prejudged  as  guilty;  that 
men  having  part  in  them  are  to  be  deemed  without 
right  to  work,  without  right  to  fair  play,  which  is  the 
native  appanage  of  all  Americans. 

"  This  I  deny :  That  all  men  are  equally  talented, 
equally  farseeing,  equally  industrious,  that  conse- 
quently all  are  more  or  less  entitled  to  an  equal  pos- 
session of  wealth  or  an  equal  industrial  reward. 

"  This  I  deny:  That  all  men  being  as  they  are  by 
nature  and  by  habit,  society  can  ever  be  without  its 
rich  and  its  comparatively  poor:  That  American  in- 
dustries and  enterprises  can  ever  thrive  and  hold  their 
own  in  world-wide  competitions  without  there  being 
here  and  there,  ministering  to  its  needs,  large  accumu- 

326 


THE    REMEDY 

latlons  of  wealth  and  consequently  large  gatherings 
of  men  with  associations  as  contributors  to  that 
wealth. 

"  Destroy  great  enterprises,  make  impossible  the 
unification  of  many  individual  energies,  and  if  equality 
then  comes,  it  will  be  equality  of  mediocrity  and  so- 
cial poverty." 

I  could  not  formulate  my  political  and  economi- 
cal creed  more  perfectly.  In  substance  and  almost  in 
form  of  words  at  some  points  I  said  these  things  sev- 
eral months  ago. 

The  political  laws  and  commissions  and  messages 
have  become  a  menace  to  our  very  fundamental  form 
of  government  and  to  our  commerce  and  manufac- 
tures, and  we  cannot  awake  too  soon  if  we  are  to  stay 
the  imperiling  tendency  of  the  hour. 

To-day  farsighted  business  men  sit  helpless  be- 
fore the  riotous  forces  that  have  laid  their  hands 
upon  the  wheels  of  manufacture  and  trade  and  that 
threaten  to  turn  out  of  our  shops  and  factories  and 
trades  hundreds  of  thousands  of  mechanics  and  labor- 
ing men  within  the  next  year.  The  spirit  of  investi- 
gation has  discredited  nearly  every  man's  business 
and  posted  warnings  everywhere  until  men  do  not 
know  where  to  insure  their  lives  or  where  to  invest 
their  savings.  The  word  comes  all  along  the  line 
from  conservative  men  to  slow  up  until  the  future 
can  be  seen  more  clearly. 

Nothing  on  earth  but  this  universal  distrust  from 
unwise    and    useless    investigations    could    stop    the 

327 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

progress  of  the  most  prosperous  age  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  Every  condition  fills  our  sails  prosper- 
ously, but  our  captains  are  called  pirates,  our  cargoes 
are  branded  as  stolen,  and  men  of  business  of  great 
aggregations  are  known  as  buccaneers.  That  is  the 
alarm  which  is  constantly  shouted  and  which  the  com- 
missioners are  trying  by  ex  parte  methods  to  justify. 
And  there  are  too  many  thousands  who  believe  it  to 
make  it  safe  for  the  country,  which  always  depends 
upon  the  confidence  of  the  people  for  business  pros- 
perity. 

The  President  accuses  his  critics,  and  especially 
the  college  men,  of  offering  no  remedies  for  the  evils 
he  sees.  Has  it  occurred  to  the  President  that  there 
are  no  evils  which  are  not  subject  to  correction  by 
the  judicial  processes  which  our  fathers  provided 
when  the  common  law  was  incorporated  into  our  Con- 
stitution and  statutes? 

The  President's  kindly  critics  believe  that  much 
of  the  evil  is  exaggerated  and  in  distorted  forms.  It 
is  incidental  and  not  radical  and  pervasive.  Much 
of  it  is  well-nigh  ancient  history,  such,  for  instance, 
as  one  of  the  most  recent  discoveries  of  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission.  It  is  not  a  live  issue. 
There  is  not  enough  evil  to-day  that  threatens  the 
common  good  to  warrant  such  a  proportion  of  the 
administration's  attention  and  machinery  of  investi- 
gation. It  may  be  good  politics.  It  may  be  a  way  to 
make  a  certain  kind  of  fame,  but  it  is  poor  statesman- 
ship. 

328 


THE    REMEDY 

If  a  remedy  of  evils  is  wanted,  we  would  suggest 
a  remedy  for  the  greater  evil  of  agitation,  exaggera- 
tion, and  distrust  which  is  threatening  the  business  of 
the  country.  Stop  investigating  and  shouting  thief  at 
every  great  form  of  business.  Restore  the  confidence 
of  the  people.  If  there  are  evils  to  correct,  correct 
them  without  the  bugles  and  drums  of  investigating 
commissions.  Use  the  common  law  and  common  sense 
which  served  the  world  quite  well  until  this  sudden 
spasm  of  government  by  commissions  and  investiga- 
tions. Dismiss  the  commissions  which  must  justify 
their  existence  by  smelling  for  rotten  things  and  give 
the  country  peace  and  rest. 

Any  government  by  investigating  commissions  or 
committees  will  keep  the  country  in  a  constant  state 
of  agitation,  for  in  the  nature  of  things  such  methods 
must  be  kept  busy.  And  there  always  are  things  to 
investigate.  You  can  stir  them  up  in  anything  from 
a  corporation  to  a  church.  I  have  known  ministers 
who  kept  churches  stirred  up  and  discredited  and 
divided  from  the  time  their  pastorates  began  until 
they  ingloriously  ended,  none  too  soon,  by  trying  to 
create  a  millennium  after  a  hand-made  pattern  of  their 
own  invention. 

We  all  want  the  most  perfect  things  in  govern- 
ment and  business,  but  there  are  some  things  that  can- 
not be  done  offhand,  and  the  more  you  work  at  it  the 
more  you  bungle  the  job.  There  are  laws  of  being 
and  progress  and  intelligence  and  ethics  that  cannot 
be  legislated  and  they  cannot  be  set  aside  or  hurried. 

329 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

If  they  could  be,  the  millennium  makers  would  have 
had  things  all  adjusted  long  ago.  But  the  world's 
history  is  full  of  the  useless  patents  and  the  broken 
implements  of  men  who  started  out  to  hurry  up  the 
world  and  change  it  over  in  a  day. 

The  only  remedy  is  with  human  nature.  And 
that  has  to  be  remedied  at  its  center.  And  there  is 
as  much  of  that  in  a  poor  man  as  in  a  rich  man  or  he 
would  not  envy  the  rich  man  his  riches.  There 
is  as  much  of  it  in  individual  business  as  there  is  in 
corporations,  for  every  corporation  is  made  out  of 
the  union  of  individual  forces  of  business.  And 
there  is  as  much  blundering  and  impotency  in  the  gen- 
eral government  as  there  is  in  the  State  governments. 
The  general  government  should  be  the  State  gov- 
ernments met  together  in  Washington — but  not  aban- 
doned at  home. 

The  evil  to  be  remedied,  if  one  of  the  impractica- 
ble college  men  might  speak,  is  the  mistaken  assump- 
tion that  the  wrongs  of  things  can  be  legislated  out 
of  them  and  that  it  Is  the  province  of  the  government 
to  use  a  machinery  of  special  commissions  to  investi- 
gate and  hunt  up  wrongs.  As  though  there  ever  had 
been  anything  or  is  anything  or  will  be  anything  while 
human  nature  lasts  that  will  not  have  some  evils  in 
it,  or  as  though  there  can  be  a  condition  while  men 
differ  In  ability  and  the  chance  of  opportunity  and  the 
passion  of  acquisitiveness,  that  will  not  present  in- 
equalities of  accumulation  and  cause  loud  protests 
from  the  unsuccessful,  who  usually  apologize  for  their 


THE    REMEDY 

failures  by  accusing  their  successful  rivals.  The 
restoration  of  our  courts  to  the  place  usurped  by  com- 
missions and  the  return  to  time-honored  methods  of 
adjusting  wrongs  ab  initio  would  hold  us  back  from 
evils  worse  than  any  threatening  from  trusts  or 
"  swollen  fortunes." 

The  age  is  peculiarly  liable  to  exaggerated  no- 
tions of  the  wrongs,  the  tyranny,  and  the  corruption 
of  men.  We  take  a  paper  at  breakfast  and  focus  the 
world's  iniquity  into  one  house  at  one  hour  as  into 
a  camera  obscura.  We  scrape  it  all  off  the  pages 
of  one  little  paper  into  our  plate  and  look  at  it  and 
say:  "How  long,  O  Lord,  how  long!  The  world 
has  gone  over  to  the  devil  bodily."  But  you  scatter 
it  all  back  whence  it  all  came  over  the  wires  and 
there  is  not  enough  of  it  to  refract  one  ray  of  the 
sun  of  our  glorious  civilization.  Look  around  you. 
Do  you  find  the  conditions  in  your  town  that  are 
in  the  other  town?  Things  located  in  another 
town,  like  a  quack's  recommendations,  usually  can- 
not be  located  anywhere.  Do  you  find  cruel  rich 
and  starving  poor?  Do  you  find  mechanics  and 
workingmen  underpaid  and  their  employers  rolling 
in  luxury  and  spending  their  money  in  indolence? 
You  find  such  exceptions.  But  that  is  not  the  rule. 
Would  there  be  more  buildings  built  and  more  rail- 
ways and  more  industries  if  there  were  fewer  million- 
aires? The  men  who  are  helping  things  out  of 
mediocrity  are  the  men  who  are  making  the  mighty 
centers  of  force  around  which  industry,  labor,  trade, 

331 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

commerce  revolve  In  their  great  orbits,  and  you  can- 
not hurl  these  tremendous  interests  Into  chaos  more 
surely  or  with  more  awful  certainty  than  by  strllclng 
these  centers  and  discrediting  them  with  the  people. 

It  would  be  well  for  our  agitators  to  study  Wash- 
ington's Farewell  Address  as  a  caution  against  the 
misuse  of  the  Constitution;  study  Lincoln's  mighty 
faith  and  superb  patience  and  his  charity  for  all; 
study  McKInley's  philosophical,  practical,  sound 
sense  and  give  the  people  a  rest.  The  evils  that  are 
will  be  corrected  by  the  force  of  public  sentiment, 
acting  sanely  and  calmly,  and  the  evils  that  are  not 
will  vanish  into  regions  whence  come  all  disturbing 
ghosts. 

There  was  not  a  thing  from  meat  packing  to  rail- 
way traffic  that  was  not  striving  to  make  Its  adjust- 
ment to  its  new  conditions,  the  larger  conditions,  and 
that  would  not  have  reached  that  adjustment  far 
more  satisfactorily  without  the  mischievous  processes 
of  an  investigation  which  took  the  fiction  sensation 
mongers  for  its  authority  and  Inspiration. 

The  demagogue  has  reveled  In  investigations, 
and  the  greater  the  evils  he  could  stir  up,  the  greater 
value  he  has  claimed  for  his  service.  That  remedy 
has  been  worse  than  the  disease. 

Strange  that  all  of  a  sudden  all  Americans  must 
be  investigated!  It  could  have  been  done  fifty  years 
ago.  It  can  be  done  fifty  years  from  now.  But  we 
will  pray  that  it  may  not  be  done  again  for  a  thousand 
years  to  come ! 

332 


THE    REMEDY 

The  remedy?  Talk  of  nothing  for  a  year  but 
the  great  and  glorious  things  of  America.  Talk  of 
the  thousand  varieties  of  handy  and  cheap  forms  into 
which  meats  and  fruits  and  vegetables,  and  all  edibles, 
are  being  put  for  men  in  all  places  and  pursuits,  from 
the  day  laborer  to  the  North-pole  explorer.  Talk  of 
the  difference  between  kerosene  at  fifteen  or  twenty 
cents  a  gallon  and  kerosene  at  one  dollar  a  gallon 
(and  every  gallon  in  those  times  might  blow  you  into 
kingdom  come) .  Talk  of  the  by-products  once  in  the 
dump  heaps  that  are  adding  hundreds  of  millions  an- 
nually to  our  country's  wealth  and  the  comforts  of 
the  rich  to  the  homes  of  the  poor.  Talk  of  unnum- 
bered forms  of  manufacture,  those  most  active  agents 
of  civilization  which  must  be  credited  to  our  great 
land.  Talk  of  the  railways  which  from  opposition 
in  their  Inception  to  persecution  throughout  their  his- 
tory, have  pushed  on,  opening  up  States,  filling  the 
nation  with  teeming  millions,  transporting  us  for  a 
fraction  of  the  cost  of  conveying  ourselves  In  all 
directions,  hurling  our  papers  and  letters  off  at  every 
wayside  village  at  a  mile  a  minute,  and  taking  to  the 
tidewaters  for  the  markets  of  the  world  the  products 
of  our  fields,  and  the  work  of  our  shops  and  fac- 
tories. Talk  about  these  great  things  a  year  and 
see  how  few  things  there  will  be  to  complain  about. 
Let  the  glory  of  our  country  and  the  glory  of  its 
future  be  the  next  party  platform.  We  have  had  pes- 
simism enough,  socialism  enough,  and  investigation 
enough. 

333 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

The  further  man  advances  the  larger  will  be  his 
concepts  and  achievements  and  the  more  diminutive 
will  appear  the  men  of  small  vision  who  obstructed 
him.  The  large  developments  of  great  men  are  not 
opposed  to  the  small  enterprises  of  smaller  men  which 
have  any  element  of  progress  in  them.  If  sometimes 
they  interfere  with  the  smaller  activities  and  cause  re- 
adjustments, they  more  than  compensate  by  the 
greater  things  accomplished.  The  smaller  things 
must  yield  to  the  larger  and  more  powerful.  It  is 
God's  law.     Nothing  is  plainer  In  all  nature. 

The  little  stars  have  their  orbits.  The  great  stars 
made  those  small  orbits.  You  can  put  neither  into 
the  place  of  the  other.  They  harmonize.  That  they 
differ  one  from  another  introduces  no  confusion  into 
the  universe.  The  ruin  would  come  by  dividing  the 
big  ones  up  to  make  little  ones  of  them. 

The  violent  effort,  opposed  to  all  laws  known  to 
man,  to  equalize  artificially  the  forms  of  our  trade 
will  stand  as  a  grim  monument  to  mark  the  supreme 
folly  of  our  country  among  all  nations  and  to  desig- 
nate our  commercial  place  in  the  centuries.  And  its 
inscriptions  will  be  the  deeper  chiseled,  more  legible 
and  enduring  because  of  the  startling  contrast  with 
our  progress  in  all  other  forms  of  intelligence. 

Let  us  find  our  remedy  for  the  present  fear  and 
distrust  and  incrimination  in  traditional  statesmanship 
as  far  removed  as  the  poles  are  apart  from  a  paternal, 
fussing,  meddling,  hysterical  form  of  government 
which  has  set  for  itself  the  regeneration  of  the  land 

334 


THE    REMEDY 

through  government  by  commissions  with  investiga- 
tion. 

If  there  be  things  which  require  the  national  at- 
tention, let  it  be  so  given  as  to  conserve  the  good 
while  restraining  the  bad.  Let  it  foster  and  promote 
the  great  things  and  not  assail  them  as  though  cor- 
porations monopolized  the  evils  and  individuals  car- 
ried the  virtues  because  they  are  done  up  in  small 
parcels.  Let  our  laws  be  discriminating,  promote  all 
the  interests  of  all  just  men,  great  and  small,  promote 
more  than  restrain,  build  up  more  than  pull  down. 
And  let  us  as  far  as  possible  steer  away  from  special 
commissions,  which  must  vindicate  themselves  by 
doing  special  things  and,  therefore,  must  find  material 
or  make  it  up  by  investigations.  Our  general  laws 
are  best.  Our  regular  courts  and  machinery  of  jus- 
tice will  be  least  influenced  by  passion  or  politics  and 
self-interest. 

And  then  let  all  the  people  insist,  with  a  front 
that  will  threaten  instant  resistance,  that  no  one  of 
our  courts  or  judges  shall  be  influenced  by  threat  or 
reward  or  malice  or  politics  or  by  anything  except 
justice.  Let  those  balances  hang  far  away  from 
White  House  or  lobby  of  legislative  halls,  in  an 
atmosphere  of  justice,  insulated  from  every  influence 
but — justice. 


CHAPTER    XX 


MEN    FOR   THE    TIMES 


IT  may  be  "  insulting  to  the  American  citizen," 
as  one  editor  of  the  public  press  has  told  me, 
to  say  that  our  great  trouble  Is  that  the  man  is 
too  small  for  his  times,  but  that  depends  upon  whether 
it  is  a  fact.  If  that  is  true,  the  remark  is  not  in- 
sulting, although  it  may  be  humiliating.  It  is  best 
to  look  into  the  face  of  facts  however  ugly  they  may 
appear, 

I  believe  that  there  is  nothing  clearer  than  that 
the  age  has  grown  faster  than  the  average  man  who 
Is  living  in  it.  Some  men  have  anticipated  It  and 
have.  Indeed,  been  Its  creators.  They,  however, 
would  be  the  first  to  say  that  It  Is  too  great  for  them. 
But  the  average  man  has  been  left  behind  in  the 
mighty  onrush  of  the  times.  He  has  found  it  im- 
possible to  keep  up  with  Its  discoveries  and  Inventions 
and  to  grasp  the  extent  of  Its  commerce  and  reveal- 
ing future.  The  problems  have  come  faster  than  he 
could  master  them.  They  have  excited  his  fears  and 
anxiety.  He  has  attempted  to  apply  old  methods,  and 
when  he  could  not,  has  condemned  and  opposed  the 

33^ 


MEN    FOR    THE    TIMES 

things  he  could  not  understand.  This  failure  of  the 
prophetic  gift  has  left  him  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
men  of  far  vision.  He  has  not  followed  the  seer. 
It  was  easier  for  him  to  brand  things  which  were 
incomprehensible  as  visionary  and  follow  the  mal- 
content. 

This  is  why  he  has  opposed  the  readjustments  of 
his  times.  He  has  sincerely  believed  them  danger- 
ous. That  business  should  pass  into  new  forms  of 
gigantic  proportions  has  seemed  to  him  perilous  and 
threatening  to  the  stability  of  the  country.  And 
when  they  have  taken  on  inevitable  magnitudes  and 
accumulated  force,  like  that  of  the  planets,  he  has 
become  dismayed,  and  like  peoples  once  frightened 
by  the  eclipse,  has  run  about  in  frantic  helplessness 
seeking  protection.  You  find  him  in  Congress  mak- 
ing laws  to  stop  progress  because  progress  has  fright- 
ened him.  Things  are  getting  too  great  and  the  few 
men  who  are  as  big  as  their  times  are  ghosts  of 
Caesars  that,  haunting  the  Nation,  may  seize  the  reins 
of  power  and  make  all  the  rest  of  us  slaves.  They 
are  the  millionaire  conspirators !  But  the  movements 
of  the  age  are  great  because  men  are  small.  They 
are  not  too  great  to  great  men.  They  are  natural 
enough  and  there  is  nothing  alarming  in  their  pro- 
portions to  those  who  have  kept  up  with  them. 
Gravitation  is  not  disturbed  by  the  addition  of  a  new 
planet  or  the  loss  of  an  old  one.  There  is  enough  of 
it  and  there  is  not  too  much  of  it.  If  a  new  planet 
comes  on,  gravitation  appoints  it  to  its  orbit.     If  one 

337 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

drops  out,  gravitation  makes  a  new  adjustment  and 
there  is  no  serious  disturbance  of  the  universe. 

The  only  question  for  us  is  what  are  the  re- 
sources and  the  forces  and  the  men  who  are  equal  to 
them?  And  it  is  our  business  not  to  make  things 
small  but  men  great,  and  to  get  out  of  the  way  of  men 
who  are  great,  and  not  hinder  them  if  we  cannot 
help  them. 

There  are  causes  for  the  inequality  of  the  times 
and  men.  The  age  has  been  more  than  a  growth — 
it  has  been  a  sudden  creation.  It  has  been  more  than 
a  sun  rising — it  has  been  a  sun  burst  out  of  a  cloud. 
Chemistry  has  thrust  upon  us,  for  instance,  in  a  half 
century  a  hundred  substances  which  were  not  cre- 
ated by  the  Almighty,  but  which  were  left  for  the 
creator-man.  Changes  in  use  of  old  forces  and  the 
application  of  new  ones  have  compelled  readjust- 
ments of  methods  of  business  and  men  have  had 
little  more  to  do  than  to  go  on  as  the  stars  do  by 
gravitation.  This  is  plain  to  those  who  having  eyes 
see  and  having  ears  hear  and  having  minds  under- 
stand. 

It  is  a  query  whether  there  might  not  be  something 
peculiar  to  our  country  in  our  imported  man.  We 
have  been  taking  into  this  country  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century  in  tremendous  numbers  peoples  who  have 
not  been  so  situated  as  to  have  had  opportunities  of 
sound  thinking  and  worthy  horizons.  They  have 
come  in  millions  to  influence  the  thought  of  our  coun- 
try and  they  have  been  subject  to  violent  prejudices 

338 


MEN    FOR    THE    TIMES 

by  being  made  to  believe  that  strength,  power,  wealth, 
business,  were  menacing  to  individual  rights  and 
privileges.  Millions  of  these  peoples  have  had  little 
opportunity  to  grasp  economic  problems  outside 
their  dinner  pails.  Their  ignorance  has  been  taken 
advantage  of  by  the  yellow  journals  In  red  type. 
Those  are  the  papers  they  read.  It  was  the  reading 
of  such  a  paper  that  murdered  McKinley. 

These  men  are  everywhere,  and  though  many 
thousands  of  men  from  alien  shores  are  our  best 
American  citizens,  they  are  not  from  these  men's 
shores.  This  Is  an  element  In  our  present  condition 
that  we  have  not  grappled  with  with  any  sound 
philosophy  or  practical  sense.  We  have  left  them 
to  the  demagogue.  We  are  now  reaping  our  whirl- 
wind. 

At  another  point  we  have  suffered.  ,  It  has  been 
by  the  loss  of  an  Americanism  essential  to  the  amal- 
gamation of  incoming  peoples.  Peoples  from  out- 
side are  to  subdue  us  to  their  crude  thinking  or  we 
are  to  lift  them  by  the  power  of  our  intelligent  and 
free  citizenship.  But  we  lost  millions  In  our  great 
Civil  War  who  would  have  been  a  tremendous  con- 
serving strength  at  this  time.  They  were  slain  In 
battles  on  both  sides  of  the  contest,  equally  virile  and 
American.  We  lost  them,  but  not  only  so,  they  would 
have  become  the  fathers  of  millions  like  themselves 
from  whom  would  have  sprung  the  great  successors 
of  those  statesmen  and  scholars,  philosophers  and 
judges,  of  our  tremendous  past.    We  can  well  believe 

339 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

that  ours  would  be  a  greater  land,  saved  from  the 
folly  that  is  now  covering  us  with  shame  and  con- 
fusion, had  these  men  been  added  to  the  force  of  our 
Americanism.  We  would  not  be  advertising  our- 
selves as  helpless  and  frightened  by  the  unusual  gifts 
of  an  unusual  land  and  time.  Those  who  are  equal 
to  the  age  are  too  great  a  minority.  Their  voices 
will  register  in  history.      Clamor  will  register  now. 

What  can  be  done?  There  is  much  that  can  be 
done.  A  work  of  education  of  public  sentiment 
must  be  begun.  The  cringing,  politic,  compromis- 
ing, self-seeking  public  man,  whether  in  the  pulpit, 
the  press,  or  the  political  forum,  must  be  displaced 
by  men  of  convictions  who  are  not  afraid  and  whose 
convictions  are  born  of  loyalty  to  truth  and  our  land. 

We  must  have  men  in  the  front  of  influence,  to 
whom  ofl'ice  is  nothing  and  money  is  cheap  and  fame 
evanescent.  Men  who  use  their  country  at  the  cost 
of  it  should  be  despised.  We  should  teach  our  chil- 
dren in  our  homes  and  in  our  public  schools  that  such 
men  are  enemies  to  our  country. 

We  should  insist  that  parties  must  be  organiza- 
tions, not  to  perpetuate  themselves  nor  to  assert  a 
slavish  authority  over  men  by  the  terror  of  the  labor 
unions'  "  scab  "  language,  or  to  promote  men  to  ofiice, 
but  for  the  direct  service  of  the  country,  to  be  sup- 
ported in  proportion  to  a  loyalty  that  will  welcome 
defeat  at  the  polls  but  never  the  defeat  of  sound 
principles  of  government;  that  will  choose  to  act  the 
part   of    a    minority    in    loyal   protest    rather    than 

340 


MEN    FOR    THE    TIMES 

control  as  a  majority  at  the  price  of  debauched  prin- 
ciples. 

Who  does  not  know  that  at  more  than  one  point 
of  vital  interest  every  party  that  has  had  control  has 
sacrificed  the  interests  of  the  country  to  party  success? 

Our  present  agitated  and  confused  condition,  our 
compromise  with  socialism,  our  use  of  the  more  subtle 
and  insidious  forms  of  anarchism  by  which  the  whole 
structure  of  government  is  disturbed  and  commerce  is 
halted  in  the  time  of  its  greatest  prosperity  with 
untold  loss  not  to  the  rich  only  but  to  the  poor, 
is  due  not  to  a  wise  and  courageous  statesmanship 
seeking  reforms  in  an  age  of  glaring  degeneracy — 
an  absurd,  an  infamous  charge — but  to  cunning,  au- 
dacious politics  which  with  a  garment  of  light  hiding 
its  true  character  is  deceiving  the  very  elect. 

Such  things  must  be  met  fearlessly  and  pursued  so 
relentlessly  by  all  possible  exposure  that  men  in  the 
trade  of  politics  at  the  expense  of  the  country  will  be 
made  as  odious  as  a  Benedict  Arnold,  for  such  men 
are  traitors  of  the  most  dangerous  character.  Men 
fighting  in  the  open  against  the  government  upon  a 
declared  issue,  even  if  a  mistaken  one,  are  infinitely 
honorable  in  comparison. 

What  is  more  detestable  than  that  man  who 
spends  his  days  and  nights  studying  the  popular 
moves  from  which  he  may  choose  some  exciting  cause 
that  will  give  him  the  following  and  claque  of  a  rest- 
less and  excitable  element  as  subject  to  influence  by 
some  new  thing  as  ever  the  Athenians  were? 
23  341 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

We  should  relegate  to  the  rubbish  heap  of  poll- 
tics  every  agitation  without  a  sound  issue  and  a  trans- 
parent cause. 

An  education  of  a  constructive  kind  In  public  sen- 
timent is  our  great  need  and  it  is  an  educational  work 
in  which  all  can  offer  themselves  as  teachers. 

Never  until  that  sentiment  is  created  will  laws 
be  worth  engrossing.  With  that  sentiment  special 
laws  are  not  needed  and  agitating  commissions  can 
safely  leave  the  country  to  discover  and  regulate  its 
wrongs  by  laws  that  the  ages  of  civilization  have 
stamped  with  efficiency. 

But  ours  must  be  a  more  intensive  education. 
Our  intellects  must  be  created.  They  are  the  foot- 
ing courses  on  which  we  build  sentiment  and  loyalty 
and  progress.  We  need  more  than  the  red  school- 
house. 

We  had  the  spectacle,  in  the  recent  trial  of  a  so- 
cialist, of  a  defendant  lawyer  arraigning  education 
as  the  creator  of  an  objectionable  class,  a  tyrannical 
class !  This  utterance  probably  has  the  distinction 
of  being  the  first  of  its  kind  from  such  a  source.  It 
is  not  usual  that  a  man  from  an  educated  profession 
champions  ignorance. 

Possibly  that  socialistic  lawyer  remembered  that 
In  the  convention  of  1787,  which  gave  us  our  consti- 
tutional government,  more  than  one  half  of  the 
members  were  university  men,  while  some  of  the 
others,  like  Franklin,  were  equal  In  mental  discipline 
and  scholarship  through  private  study.    That  Is  why 

342 


MEN    FOR    THE    TIMES 

he  thinks  the  Republic  tyrannical!  The  educated 
man  hardly  needs  a  defense  in  these  days  and  the 
man  who  scorns  him  boasts  his  ignorance. 

The  story  is  told  of  the  late  Bishop  Ames,  a  con- 
fidential adviser  of  Lincoln  and  one  of  the  best-known 
bishops  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  that 
when  presiding  over  a  frontier  conference,  one  of  the 
older  ministers  in  an  ardent  speech  thanked  God  that 
he  was  not  a  college  man.  The  bishop  said:  "  Do  I 
understand  the  brother  to  thank  God  for  his  igno- 
rance?" "  Yes,  sir,  I  do,"  was  the  reply.  "Well," 
the  bishop  answered,  "  the  brother  has  much  to  be 
thankful  for!" 

Power  of  brain  to  interrogate  our  times  intelli- 
gently, clearly,  and  rationally  would  correct  preva- 
lent vagaries  with  regard  to  government  and  twen- 
tieth-century forms  of  commerce  and  trade  and  social 
conditions. 

The  case  is  as  plain  as  the  growth  of  trees  and 
other  plant  forms  that  the  mind  is  increased  by  what 
it  feeds  upon — by  hard  study  and  sound  thinking,  and 
so  becomes  able  to  generalize  safely  Its  facts  and  use 
them  constructively.  It  is  the  way  the  strong  man 
Is  made. 

And  that  Is  the  first  work  for  education,  to  make 
a  man  as  big  as  his  time;  to  make  him  for  himself 
and  not  a  mere  commercial  machine ;  to  make  him  safe 
to  himself;  capable  of  thinking  for  himself;  with 
Ideals  that  lift  him  to  leadership.  Especially  in  a 
country  where  every   voter  is   a   ruler,   every   voter 

343 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

should  be  thoroughly  furnished  by  a  sound  education 
in  the  public  schools,  the  technical  schools,  and  the 
colleges. 

The  Rev.  Bishop  Bash  ford,  in  discussing  the 
advantages  of  a  college  education,  has  given  some 
interesting  facts  and  figures.  According  to  these 
figures  the  college-bred  men  of  the  United  States  have 
furnished  thirty-two  per  cent  of  all  Congressmen, 
forty-six  per  cent  of  our  Senators,  fifty  per  cent  of  the 
Vice-presidents,  sixty-five  per  cent  of  the  Presidents, 
seventy-three  per  cent  of  the  Judges  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  eighty-three  per  cent  of  our  Chief  Justices. 
"  But  as  only  one  man  in  750  reaching  twenty-one 
throughout  our  history  has  been  a  college  graduate,  a 
little  calculation  will  show  that  a  college  education 
increases  its  possessor's  opportunities  of  reaching 
political  eminence  in  the  United  States  from  two  hun- 
dred and  fortyfold  in  case  of  Congressmen  to  six  hun- 
dred and  twenty-twofold  in  case  of  the  Chief  Justices 
of  the  Supreme  Court.  A  college  education  increases 
one's  opportunities  of  reaching  the  higher  places  in 
government  even  more  than  it  increases  his  opportuni- 
ties of  reaching  the  lower  positions. 

"  Soon  after  the  Cyclopedia  of  American  Biog- 
raphy was  issued  President  Thwing  looked  up  the 
educational  record  of  every  name  appearing  in  the 
six  volumes.  Out  of  15,142  persons  whose  names 
appear  in  our  national  biography,  5,326,  or  thirty- 
five  per  cent,  were  college  bred.  In  other  words,  a 
college  education  gives  a  young  person  262  times  as 

344 


MEN    FOR    THE    TIMES 

many  possibilities  of  reaching  recognition  In  a  na- 
tional biography  as  those  persons  enjoy  who  have 
neglected  their  early  opportunities  for  culture. 

"  A  well-read  person  was  handed  the  six  volumes 
of  this  same  Cyclopedia  and  was  asked  to  select  from 
it  lOO  Americans  whose  names  would  be  immortal. 
After  much  examination  and  study  he  furnished  a 
hst  of  150  Americans — authors,  teachers,  soldiers, 
preachers,  statesmen,  inventors,  business  men,  and  re- 
formers, whose  fame  in  his  judgment  would  be  last- 
ing. The  early  lives  of  these  persons  were  examined 
and  seventy-five  per  cent  of  them  were  found  to  be 
college  graduates.  This  shows  that  as  we  pass  from 
the  less  eminent  to  the  more  famous  Americans  the 
proportion  of  college  graduates  increases  a  young 
person's  possibilities  of  reaching  the  roll  of  Ameri- 
can immortals  five  hundred  and  sixty-twofold. 

"  Several  intelligent  persons  were  asked  recently 
to  name  the  twelve  persons  who  in  their  judgment 
had  won  the  greatest  fame  in  the  recent  war  with 
Spain.  After  some  discussion  a  list  of  sixteen  names 
was  agreed  upon  and  submitted  to  the  writer.  The 
record  of  these  persons  disclosed  the  fact  that  four- 
teen of  them,  or  eighty-seven  and  a  half  per  cent,  were 
college  graduates.  In  other  words,  the  discipline  and 
association  of  the  college  increased  the  opportunities 
of  winning  fame  in  the  late  war  six  hundred  and 
fifty-sixfold. 

"  The  statistics  furnished  surely  demonstrate  the 
immense  advantages  which  a  college  education  gives 

345 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

young  people  for  a  public  career.  The  impression  is 
quite  general,  however,  that  for  a  life  of  business  a 
college  education  furnishes  no  advantages.  Indeed, 
many  people  believe  that  higher  education  stands  in 
the  way  of  money-making  by  demanding  the  time  and 
money  which  might  otherwise  give  a  young  man  an 
excellent  start  in  business.  Let  us  test  this  impres- 
sion by  the  facts. 

"  The  first  wealthy  Rothschild  was  trained  for 
the  Jewish  priesthood  and  then  used  his  disciplined 
powers  for  laying  the  foundations  of  that  great  bank- 
ing house.  James  Gordon  Bennett,  Sr.,  studied  ten 
years  for  the  priesthood  and  then  abandoned  the 
sanctuary  for  the  editorial  sanctum  and  used  his 
trained  intellect  for  founding  one  of  the  great  news- 
papers of  the  country.  A.  T.  Stewart  was  educated 
for  the  ministry,  became  a  teacher,  and  then  turned 
his  keen,  trained  mind  to  business  and  accumulated 
a  fortune  of  $40,000,000.  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  who 
made  millions  and  w^ho  left  $5,000,000  to  the  New 
York  Library,  was  the  son  of  a  farmer  and  a  graduate 
of  New  York  University.  Abram  Hewitt,  the  incor- 
ruptible mayor  of  New  York,  the  millionaire  business 
man  and  partner  of  Peter  Cooper,  was  a  graduate  of 
Columbia  College.  Henry  Roosevelt,  who  made 
millions  and  left  $2,000,000  to  the  Roosevelt  Hos- 
pital of  New  York,  Is  another  example  of  the  gradu- 
ate in  business.  John  A.  Stevens,  a  Yale  alumnus, 
who  was  for  thirty  years  president  of  the  New  York 
Bank   of   Commerce,    was   the   financial    adviser   of 

346 


MEN    FOR   THE    TIMES 

Chase  and  Lincoln,  and  the  chairman  of  the  com- 
mittee which  raised  $150,000,000  for  the  govern- 
ment at  the  time  of  her  sorest  need  during  the  Civil 
War.  WilHam  B.  Astor  completed  a  college  course 
and  then  used  his  disciplined  powers  to  add  $50,000,- 
000  to  the  Astor  estates.  A  study  of  our  commercial 
metropolis  shows  that  some  college  graduates  at 
least  are  men  of  affairs  able  to  bring  things  to  pass 
in  the  business  world  and  to  secure  wealth.  Such 
eminent  financiers  as  Corcoran  and  Bell,  of  Wash- 
ington, Biddle,  Rush,  and  Pepper,  of  Philadelphia, 
the  Tudors,  Adamses,  Durant,  and  the  Lawrences,  of 
Boston,  teach  the  same  lesson." 

Ignorance  is  the  soil  of  anarchy  and  socialism. 
The  demagogue  influences  the  ignorant.  And  the 
demagogues  multiply  among  the  ignorant.  The  raw 
condition  of  this  land  is  our  danger. 

Science  is  no  longer  exclusively  scholastic  and 
mythical.  It  is  practical  and  is  being  harnessed  to 
countless  forms  of  human  endeavor.  Hundreds  of 
millions  of  dollars  are  being  invested  in  electricity 
that  was  represented  a  century  ago  by  one  man  and 
a  kite.  To  master  it  and  apply  it  in  best  forms  by  the 
most  perfect  apparatus  demands  a  long  and  thorough 
course  of  training.  The  young  man  should  bring  to  it 
a  prepared  brain  and  then  spend  years  in  an  engineer- 
ing course,  mathematical,  experimental,  practical, 
under  trained  instructors. 

Chemistry  is  represented  by  other  hundreds  of 
millions.     It  yields  up  its  secrets  and  renders  its  will- 

347 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

ing  service  to  the  educated  only.  It  will  destroy  the 
ignorant  meddlers.  Biology  in  surgical  and  medical 
practice,  geology  in  the  structure  of  the  globe  and  in 
mining  developments,  botany  in  curative  drugs  and  a 
thousand  useful  and  esthetic  forms,  mineralogy  in  the 
ores  and  precious  metals;  in  fact,  all  of  the  sciences 
as  taught  in  the  colleges  are  practical  demands  and 
the  educated  mind  is  the  master  to  whom  they  yield 
obedience. 

Education  is  not  for  culture  simply.  It  is  a  prac- 
tical necessity.  It  is  becoming  indispensable  to  men 
in  all  walks  of  life  since  human  life  is  entering  into 
the  possession  of  the  awful  forces  and  agents  of  the 
universe  to  which  the  ignorant  are  unequal  and  by 
which  they  are  endangered  and  destroyed.  It  is  not 
to  ride  Bucephalus,  but  to  bridle  and  saddle  and  ride 
lightning  that  our  young  Alexanders  are  come.  And 
they  are  to  do  it  by  turning  out  of  the  shadows  of 
ignorance  toward  the  rising  sun  of  revealed  truth 
and  ascending  knowledge. 

Shall  we  have  a  Lusitania  of  790  feet  in  length 
and  40,000  tons  burden,  with  45,000  horse  power  of 
steam,  in  her  immensity  and  not  have  a  man  equally 
equipped  and  disciplined  to  command  her?  As  much 
greater  the  ship  than  the  old-fashioned  sailing  vessel, 
so  much  greater  the  man.  We  must  make  our  men 
as  great  as  the  times  in  which  they  live.  I  am  told 
that  the  most  successful  transatlantic  line,  the  only 
one  that  never  has  lost  a  life,  requires  the  four 
officers  subordinate  to  the  captain  to  hold  a  captain's 

348 


MEN    FOR    THE    TIMES 

license.  And  I  am  told  that  these  officers  were 
educated  for  the  British  navy  and  all  have  been  mas- 
ters of  ships.     That  is  in  keeping  with  the  age. 

In  a  republic  where  the  people  are  the  rulers, 
where  the  voter  is  the  emperor,  the  demand  for  edu- 
cated men  is  placed  upon  the  people.  We  are  in 
contempt  instantly  among  the  nations  of  the  earth 
if  we  send  the  uneducated  and  unthinking  into  Con- 
gress or  into  high  executive  positions.  Our  land 
demands  nothing  so  much  as  great  minds.  And  the 
universities  and  colleges  must  work  night  and  day 
to  keep  up  with  the  market  demand,  because  the 
80,000,000  will  soon  be  200,000,000,  and  this  is  only 
the  beginning.  Great  men  for  a  great  country  is  the 
logic  of  events. 

Evils  in  corporations  and  In  individual  enterprise 
will  be  corrected  by  strong  thinking  brains  as  we  move 
forward.  We  never  shall  go  backward.  We  must 
go  forward.  What  we  need  Is  not  a  riotous  clamor 
against  organized  capital,  but  we  should  develop  our 
young  men  to  a  capacity  and  arouse  In  them  a  loyalty 
that  will  prepare  them  to  go  into  Congress  and  intel- 
ligently legislate  safe  adjustments  of  these  gigantic 
forces  of  the  times,  and  the  largest  possible  forms  of 
business  In  manufacture,  trade,  and  Industry  to  the 
State  and  to  all  the  civil  rights  of  men  by  sound 
principles  of  progress  and  prosperity. 

The  very  magnitude  of  the  age  has  Imposed  upon 
man  the  obligation  of  presenting  to  its  service  his  ut- 
most powers.     He  must  be  as  great  as  the  things  he 

349 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

makes  and  the  things  he  attempts  to  control.  The 
plain  man,  the  workingman  must  be  a  philosopher  and 
statesman.  The  means  are  at  hand.  The  world  is 
full  of  books.  The  workingman  of  our  cities  could 
carry  home  at  night  the  best  thinking,  the  latest  dis- 
coveries, the  most  practical  sciences,  the  most  inspir- 
ing discussions  of  the  great  questions  of  the  age,  for 
about  what  it  cost  him  that  day  for  his  beer.  Ten 
minutes  with  his  minister,  his  priest,  his  rabbi,  or 
the  school-teacher  will  give  him  the  necessary  hints 
for  wise  selection  of  subjects. 

It  is  startling,  If  not  appalling,  to  think  of  such  a 
country  as  ours  In  such  an  age,  with  such  mighty 
forces  and  with  movements  so  vast,  governed  by  vot- 
ers who  cannot  grasp  Its  tremendous  problems,  but 
who  are  the  traffic  and  barter  of  the  politician  with 
his  yellow  newspaper. 

We  cannot  consent  as  a  country  to  have  our  laws 
made  and  our  pace  set  in  these  awful  times  by  men  of 
small  and  unworthy  concepts.  We  must  have  think- 
ers everywhere  from  the  dinner  pail  to  the  pulpit, 
clear-visioned,  practical  thinkers;  men  who  have 
something  to  think  with  as  well  as  to  think  about. 

The  greatest  nation  of  the  earth  demands  the 
greatest  intellectual  force,  the  purest  morals  and  tru- 
est patriotism  to  be  found  among  men  for  its  lawmak- 
ers and  executives.  Our  task  is  the  development  of 
our  internal  resources,  the  amalgamation  of  conflict- 
ing races  and  conditions  meeting  on  our  shores,  the 
opening  up  of  all  of  those  golden  seams  of  progress 

350 


MEN    FOR    THE    TIMES 

that  lead  across  our  mighty  continent,  the  preparation 
of  a  last  civilization  of  so  great  virility  and  power 
that  it  will  be  ready  for  the  conquest  of  forces  sure 
to  invade  our  land  from  the  Western  worlds  to  con- 
quer us  or  to  be  conquered.  We  are  at  the  outer 
threshold  of  our  mission  and  opportunity  as  a  nation 
and  we  must  have  men  constructive  and  not  destruc- 
tive to  control  and  shape  our  destiny.  Ours  must  be 
men  of  steady,  calm  confidence  and  deep-rooted,  safe 
convictions.  It  is  no  time  for  Dryden's  "  Duke  of 
Buckingham  " : 

A  man  so  various  that  he  seemed  to  be 
Not  one  but  all  mankind's  epitome, 
Stiff  in  opinions,  always  in  the  wrong, 
Everything  by  turns  and  nothing  long. 

That  is  your  professional  politician. whose  life  is 
full  of  cowardly  contradictions. 

Our  only  safety  is  in  an  insistence  that  govern- 
ment shall  be  by  the  Constitution  and  by  those  laws 
and  principles  which  have  been  tested  in  all  civilized 
ages. 

If  we  trifle  with  constitutional  government  by 
"  stretching  the  Constitution,"  by  reading  into  it  per- 
sonal opinions  and  reading  out  of  it  safeguards 
against  dangerous  ambitions;  if  we  swing  it  like  a  gate 
on  hinges,  allowing  men  to  open  and  shut  it  at  will, 
we  shall  have  a  government  by  men  and  not  by  law 
and  that  leads  to  oligarchy  and  tyranny.  Our  safety 
is  in  the  wisdom  of  our  fathers  of  1787  and  our  prog- 

351 


THE    RAID    ON    PROSPERITY 

ress  up  the  heights  of  civilization  and  to  a  sure  pros- 
perity must  be  by  the  protection  of  the  Constitution, 
which  secures  and  guarantees  the  inalienable  rights  of 
the  people  both  rich  and  poor.  Theirs  was  a  pre- 
scient wisdom  which  provided  for  the  civic  rights  of 
every  new  adjustment.  This  highway  leads  to  a 
prosperity  commensurate  with  our  resources  and  our 
obhgations. 


(?) 


THE    END 


A  VALUABLE  FINANCL\L  BOOK. 


Financial  Crises 

And  Periods  of  Industrial  and  Commercial  Depression. 
With  Diagrams,  Bibliography,  and  Index.  By  Theodore 
E,  Burton.  i2mo.  Cloth,  $1.40  net;  postage,  12  cents 
additional. 

"  Mr.  Burton  has  written  a  very  interesting  book.  His  table  of  bib- 
liography shows  that,  in  collecting  his  facts,  he  has  examined  a  great 
number  of  authorities  ;  and  his  theories,  based  on  these  facts,  should 
prove  acceptable  to  all  who  have  studied  the  subject." 

— New  York  Evening  Post. 

"  It  is  a  guide  of  financial  fact  and  theory.  Out  of  this  volume  one 
can  trace  the  causes  of  financial  depressions  and  detect  the  warning 
signs  which  precede  their  coming.  And  when  they  have  come  one  can 
learn  here  how  to  deal  with  them  and  check  their  worst  effects.  The 
whole  book  is  filled  with  data  of  the  utmost  value  to  business  men  and 
financiers,  as  also  to  those  intelligent  readers  who,  while  perhaps  not 
interested  in  the  subject  of  finance  as  a  study,  must  find  it  of  invaluable 
interest  as  a  subject  of  skilful  literary  treatment." — Philadelphia  Item. 

"The  author  has  deeply  entered  and  minutely  analyzed  his  subject- 
matter  in  preparing  what  will  be  recognized  as  a  standard  work." 

— Boston  Advertiser. 

"  The  book  is  splendid  and  most  complete,  while  the  quotations  from 
the  works  of  the  leading  economic  writers  in  this  country  and  Europe, 
used  to  enforce  the  arguments  which  Mr.  Burton  presents,  enforce  the 
chain  forged  of  fact  and  argument." — Netu  York  Mail  and  Express. 

"  The  volume  is  a  remarkably  succinct  and  lucid  study.  It  should 
be  read  by  every  banker  and  man  of  business." 

— Satt  Francisco  Argonaut. 

"  General  readers  of  financial  books  and  all  advanced  students  will 
appreciate  this  valuable  work,  but  it  will  be  especially  prized  by  bankers 
and  others  in  financial  and  business  life.  It  combines  theory,  criticism, 
and  statistical  fact.  In  the  theoretical  part  the  author  exposes  some 
fallacies  as  to  financial  crises  and  panics,  and  offers  a  positive  theory 
which  is  reasonable  and  tenable." — Brooklyn  Standard- Union. 


D.     APPLETON      AND     COMPANY,      NEW     YORK. 


APPLETONS'  BUSINESS  SERIES. 

Trust  Finance. 

By  Dr.  E.  S.  Meade,  of  the  Wharton  School  of  Finance, 
University  of  Pennsylvania.  i2mo.  Cloth,  $1.25  net; 
postage,  12  cents  additional. 

In  "  Trust  Finance "  are  discussed  the  methods  which  have  been 
employed  and  the  financial  principles  which  are  illustrated  in  the  pro- 
motion, financing,  and  financial  management  of  the  industrial  trusts. 

The  author  has  no  program  of  trust  regulation  to  advocate,  nor  is 
it  apparent  that  he  considers  any  scheme  of  regulation  necessary  or 
even  desirable.  He  confines  himself  to  a  discussion  of  financial  meth- 
ods and  principles  as  illustrated  by  the  history  of  the  ludustrial  Trust, 
and  avoids  the  main  grounds  of  the  controversy  which  the  so-called 
"  Trust  Question  "  arouses.  The  book  will  be  of  service  to  the  in- 
vestor, and  to  the  student  of  finance  who  wishes  to  gain  an  insight  into 
the  nature  of  the  trust  as  an  institution  without  reference  to  its  moral 
or  ethical  characteristics  and  functions. 

"A  useful  and  timely  work." — Chicago  Inter-Ocean. 

"Of  profitable  interest  to  students  of  finance." — Boston  Advertiser. 

"  A  masterly  study  of  trusts  from  the  investor's  standpoint." —  The 
Outlook. 

"  Nothing  more  searching  and  brilliant  has  been  written  on  the 
subject." — Seattle  Times. 

"Interesting  because  it  gives  a  complete  resume  of  the  whole 
'  trust '  subject." — Philadelphia  Inquirer. 

"  Nothing  could  be  more  enlightening  and  fairer  than  Professor 
Meade's  discussion  of  the  conditions  that  drove  competitive  industries 
into  combination." — Chicago  Evening  Post. 

"  A  comprehensive  and  able  statement  of  the  genesis,  the  oi^aniza- 
tion,  and  the  management  of  the  industrial  combinations  commonly 
known  as  the  '  trusts.'  This  field  has  been  made  the  subject  of  any 
number  of  newspaper  and  magazine  articles,  as  well  as  addresses 
before  economic  associations,  but  which  is  for  the  first  time  dealt  with 
in  the  large  and  thorough  way  which  Mr.  Meade  is  able  to  employ  in 
this  book.  He  has  made  a  valuable  addition  to  financial  literature." — 
fVall  Street  Journal. 

D.    APPLETON     AND     COMPANY,     NEW    YORK. 


3  1158  00922  8247 


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